Press conference'A very, very good team' - Arne Slot's pre-match analysis before Galatasaray v Liverpool
The head coach was speaking during Monday night's pre-match press conference at RAMS Park in Istanbul, where the Reds play their second Champions League league-phase game of the campaign on Tuesday evening (8pm BST kick-off).
See our round-up from Slot's media briefing below...
On what he is looking for from his team in terms of a reaction to the weekend loss at Crystal Palace…
I think we always have to do – no matter if we win, lose or draw – what is asked from you if you want to compete for trophies but let alone if you wear a Liverpool shirt and that is giving everything you have, and combine that with the best football you can play. I think in the course of the game against Palace we created more chances than we have created in all of the three games we've played before against Palace, but we conceded also many more chances than we did before when we played Palace. So we can definitely improve on a few things – and the things we can improve, I will show tonight [to the players].
On how he'd analyse Liverpool's defence so far this season and whether changing full-backs has had an impact...
I almost like that you ask me this question because, for me, defending is only a small margin [involving] defenders. I think one of our strengths was we kept the other team away from our goal a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, and that normally doesn't start with your defenders – that starts somewhere else. If you look at it more detailed, we've conceded four goals from set-pieces. Yes, we've changed our full-backs but we've changed a bit more than only our full-backs and the goals we've conceded. I should look back at it in detail, but the first thing that comes to my mind is not that the full-backs are our problem. It has always been a team performance.
Last season I said many times, the reason we hardly conceded was that 11 players worked incredibly hard to make it difficult for the other team to even create a chance. That's what we have done this season many times as well, but you can work as hard as you want but a set-piece is almost a different game inside a game. That was, by the way, one of our main strengths last season, that we hardly conceded from set-pieces.
We have to go back to that, we haven't changed our set-up, we haven't changed anything, so we have to prove in the upcoming weeks and months that we were maybe a bit unlucky in conceding some set-pieces. That can happen in five or six games [and can be] difficult to see it for the long term. We definitely have to improve because I also see teams in the Premier League that win games by set-pieces and we lose games because of set-pieces.
On what Liverpool need 'to do differently to avoid giving Galatasaray the initiative'...
That depends by what you mean by 'the initiative' because for me Palace didn't have the initiative if you talk about ball possession. Even the first eight minutes were perfectly fine for me until we've conceded a corner. By the way, you can debate if it was a corner, yes or no – the answer for why I got a yellow. And then we conceded a corner and they've created and we've conceded too many chances, but it wasn't because they had the initiative. It was because they counter-attacked us really well a few times and we lost the ball in positions where we shouldn't have lost it. We have to do much better than this, I am not sitting here telling you we played a good first half and I am not telling you that having initiative in a game is something that is worth a lot.
No, if you have initiative, it should lead to chances and it definitely should not lead to conceding chances, but it wasn't that they were all over us. They counter-attacked us a few times really well and we didn't do as well as we had to do. They played the ball into our last line, where they won the second ball a few times and that's something we need to improve. Galatasaray are a completely different team to Palace, but also a team that are very hard to defeat, similar to Palace.
Eighteen games without a loss, Palace, and this team have won the first seven games in the league, so that means they are mentally also strong for difficult moments. If you win a lot then you are also mostly mentally a bit stronger. So, a very difficult team to face, both with a lot of qualities, but you cannot compare these teams. One is playing 5-4-1, the other one is playing 4-3-3, so different players, different manager and a different formation.
On Galatasaray and their 5-1 defeat at Eintracht Frankfurt on matchday one…
Their loss against Frankfurt, I have watched that game and for me they were very, very, very unlucky in that game. The chances they gave away were only small and it was either the quality of Frankfurt or little bit of bad luck for Galatasaray that they conceded five because if they play the same game again, they will never, ever, ever concede five goals again in that same game because they played much better than the 5-1 showed. That's also what you see now at the beginning of the season here in Turkiye, seven wins and only conceded two if I am correct, scored a lot of goals, so a very, very good team and a very good manager who has been so successful over here as a player. So they know what it takes to win the league and know what it takes to win a game of football, so we have to be prepared for that.
On the set-piece threat from Galatasaray...
I think you've already given the answer: we've shown we are a team that can defend set-pieces really well. More and more in football you see it becomes more and more a set-piece game. I know set-pieces are a part of football, but I watched Brentford [versus] Man United on the way up to Palace. I saw 25 minutes of that game and I think it was 20 minutes of long throw-ins, set-pieces, long throw-ins, set-pieces, corner kick, goal-kick... a goal-kick is not a set-piece, by the way! This is the style of football you see more and more mainly in the Premier League, in my opinion. There is a reason for me why it is done even more in the Premier League than in other leagues [and that's] because in the Premier League you can do much more. You can attack a goalkeeper, for example, you can even touch him and it is not even a foul. This is something everybody likes about the Premier League, but in Europe this is definitely a bit different.
We knew Galatasaray were also strong on set-pieces, but I can tell you we were a force on set-pieces last season and we won our last Champions League game because of a set-piece [when] we scored the 3-2 with Virgil [van Dijk]. We were very, very, very close to scoring one against Palace. Every team you face at the moment, you have to be so, so, so well prepared when it comes to set-pieces. Back in the days when I was still playing, we only talked about football and there was not even a set-piece, let alone a set-piece meeting. Nowadays, set-piece meetings take just as long as the tactical meeting or the preparation for the game football-wise. That tells you the importance we give to set-pieces and I think every team around Europe gives to set-pieces.
On how much he is relying on the knowledge about Turkish football of assistant coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst, who was formerly head coach of Galatasaray's rivals Besiktas…
Giovanni van Bronckhorst is one of my assistant coaches so he is part of the set-up if we discuss or talk about the team we face, if that is Palace or Everton or Atletico Madrid or, in this situation, Galatasaray. So he has knowledge about Turkish football, he knows these players, some of them, that we're going to face tomorrow maybe better than the rest of the staff because we have not worked in this league and not played against them. But in modern football there are so many videos you can watch, you can watch so many games that every manager, even if you haven't worked here, can know a lot about the other team. So yes, we have used Gio, as we have used the other assistant coaches as well.