NewsArne Slot press conference: Tottenham clash, 'point to prove', Ngumoha and more
The Reds head coach spoke to reporters during a press conference on Friday morning at the AXA Training Centre.
Among a number of topics, Slot discussed the Anfield game against Spurs, what he wants the team to achieve in the closing months of the campaign and Rio Ngumoha.
Read a summary below…
On the contrast in Liverpool’s form compared to the last Anfield clash with Spurs, when the Reds clinched the Premier League title…
Yeah, it wasn’t only special for me, it was special for a lot of people. There’s a big difference between where we are now and where we were then, that’s clear and obvious. It’s a great memory. But I’m looking forward to the game in two days again as well, because playing at home at Anfield is always something to look forward to. And we have a point to prove, because the last game in the league we’ve lost, the last game in the Champions League we’ve lost, and now playing in front of our own fans is something we will always find special.
On what he wants to achieve in the remainder of this season…
What I want is that I am able that every single player gets the maximum out of every single training session and game we are playing from now until the end of the season. And that is the aim, for me and that should be the aim for the players and I’m 100 per cent sure that is the aim for the players, because that’s the only way to get the maximum out of what is there, what is in it for us. What that’s exactly going to be, that’s not always so easy to say in advance because sometimes you need a little bit of luck.
Like last season when we played the last 16 [in the Champions League], it went to penalties and we were really close of beating Paris Saint-Germain. We lost and they went on to win the Champions League. So, margins at the level we are playing – Premier League, Champions League – are really small, but we have to fight for those margins every single day to make them bigger and bigger and bigger. And that’s the aim. That was already the aim at the start of the season but that’s even more the aim now.
On setting the bar high last season…
I think the bar at Liverpool is always high. It has always been high and will always be high. And that’s only a good thing. We’re a top club, where the bar should be set high by the people around us, but we will set the bar just as high. Yeah, indeed, last season where we were able to achieve one of the things we wanted to achieve and that was winning a league, close to winning the League Cup, which we lost in the final against Newcastle. This season of course we’re unable to win the league again, but we’re still in two cups, Champions League and the FA Cup, where we are competing.
On whether Spurs’ form and Liverpool’s record against them ‘increases the expectation on the team to win the game’…
I think if Tottenham would be No.1 in the league at the moment, every fan would expect us at home to win. And that is if we play against Man City, that’s when we play against Arsenal, that’s every game this club plays at home: we’re expected to win. That has nothing to do with the form of the other team or where they are in the league or the quality they have. We can win our 1,500th [league] game at home, so expectations come from history and history has shown that this club has been able to win a lot of games, let alone home games. So, it doesn’t matter who we play, who we face, expectations are always sky-high at this club, and that’s what we are embracing because that also means, as I said before, that this club is able to win things. That’s what we’ve done in the past few years and in history as well.
On ‘why so many players didn’t reach their levels’ against Galatasaray on Tuesday…
I believe that a good individual performance comes from a good team performance. I think in the first 15, 20 minutes we were ‘at it’ or ‘on it’, I don’t exactly know how you say this. Three or four moments where we should have scored and then there was a moment that completely changed the momentum of the game, conceding a set-piece. Not for the first time in this season, that changed the momentum of the game completely. That is not what we are accepting. We cannot say, ‘OK, if we concede a goal after 20 minutes then everything should be much worse than it was before.’
But I agree with you, we didn’t play our best game of the season, that’s also completely clear. I also saw that for an away game in Europe, we were able to generate enough chances to score a goal, more than a few other teams were able to create in an away game in the Champions League. But we’ve struggled throughout this whole season with converting the chances we’ve got. And unfortunately, we have the bad cocktail of conceding goals from the few chances we are conceding.
As long as we cannot repair that, every game is going to be very difficult. But I have a lot of confidence that we are able to do better because of the quality players we are having and because of the fact that the upcoming two games are played at home. I think playing away against Galatasaray and then them getting the goal, that was a big momentum shift but also in the energy in the stadium. So I’m really looking forward to playing twice at home now with the support we’ve always felt from our fans. That can make a massive difference for us.
On how close Ngumoha is to starting in the Premier League and what the ‘balancing act’ is with him…
It’s not that we think so far ahead what it would mean for the rest [of his career], but this season we’ve treated him carefully. I think I’ve said something about that before, that he cannot be too many days in a row on the pitch because of stress fractures players of these ages sometimes have and have had here in this club. Jayden Danns is one of the examples of that. But Rio is a player that could start for us. I think I’ve said a month ago that he would get more playing time and I think we’ve all seen that; coming in for a longer spell of times, starting against Wolves.
And he’s definitely an option to start in one of the upcoming three games because, as you know, for the fifth time this season, I think, we have to play three games in seven days with an early kick-off on Saturday, an away game at Brighton. So, we’ve been very ‘lucky’ this season with that schedule. So yeah, that means you need more than 11 players and of course, the midweek game can also be longer than 90, as we’ve experienced last season. So, with then playing three games in seven days, every player that’s fit has the chance to play or to start in the upcoming three games.