Q&AArne Slot press conference: Arsenal, defensive record and always trying to improve

The Reds made it 11 wins in the 12 games of the head coach’s tenure – and seven clean sheets – with a 1-0 victory at RB Leipzig in the Champions League in midweek.

Attention has now turned to the Premier League meeting with last season’s runners-up, which kicks off at 4.30pm GMT in the capital.

Ahead of the game, Slot spoke to the media about what he expects against the Gunners, the foundations behind Liverpool’s defensive record and how the squad are navigating such a busy period.

Read every word from the press conference – in addition to his squad injury update here – below…

On the toughness of the test he expects against Arsenal on Sunday…

I said before the game and after the game that I expect a lot from Chelsea this season, and I think they showed it also last Sunday at Anfield. They are a similar team to Arsenal when it comes to playing style, they also like to go with their full-back inside and come into the same formation as Arsenal. But if you look at the last two seasons, Arsenal were far ahead of us but also above Chelsea, so you would assume that playing Arsenal would even be more difficult. But let’s see at the end of the season where Chelsea and Arsenal both are. But normally you would expect, because it’s also an away game, that this one is even more difficult than Chelsea at home and we all see how difficult Chelsea at home was.

On it being a ‘statement’ if Liverpool were to win this weekend’s game…

We all know that taking points from your competitor [is important]. And nobody knows in this early stage who is going to be your competitor or your biggest competitor, but I think we all know that Arsenal will be one of them and then dropping points against them or winning points against them, that is always important. So, you’re right, I think it was three draws and one loss [against Arsenal and Manchester City] last season so if you use simple mathematics, if Liverpool could have won all three of them I think the league table would have been a bit different. It’s difficult to win an away leg against Arsenal, City or all the other ones but it’s something we are trying on Sunday definitely.

On the excitement for matches of this magnitude…

In the life of a manager – and I’m talking about a manager, I don’t know how it is for the players – the excitement is for 10 to 15 minutes after the game, when you’re still on the pitch. You walk off it and then you already start to think, ‘OK, what am I going to say to the players next when they all come in?’ And then afterwards you go to the press conference and then your focus is already on the next game. So the excitement for a manager is maybe 10 to 15 minutes after good results. But it’s a very nice fixture to be in, that’s clear. But there are many, many nice fixtures to be in and Arsenal away is one of them.

On how Liverpool’s start to the season compares to the targets he had set…

It’s not that if I start the season I have targets to how many points you want to have after a certain amount of games. It is what I just said about the joy you have after a game is 10 to 15 minutes, and that’s also the way I look at the fixture list. So it’s always the next one you try to prepare and not looking too far ahead because that’s of no use in football. You don’t go into a season thinking, ‘After 10 games I want to have so many points.’

No, the only thing you want is your team in the best possible way and to prepare the team in the best possible way. For that, you have your training sessions, your team meetings and there is where your main focus is and not so much into how many points and where we exactly are. It’s just trying to improve every single day and that’s what we’re trying now. And that’s also what’s needed, because teams around us do the same.

On the ‘durability and work ethic’ behind the team’s defensive record…

I think you say it in the right way, there are two reasons why we don’t concede a lot. One of them is that most games – almost all of them, maybe except for one – we dominated and controlled that for large parts of the game. It helps if you dominate, if you have the ball, in order that you then can’t concede. But I also like that if we have difficult parts of the game or for a large part of the game like we had against Chelsea, that the work-rate is incredible not to concede. And that is something that’s very important. If you combine that with having the likes of Virgil [van Dijk] and Ibou [Konate] and the two goalkeepers we’ve used until now, that is probably one of the reasons – these three elements – why we haven’t conceded that much. And then to be aware of the fact that we also have Jarell Quansah and Joe Gomez, we are in a good place when it comes to centre-backs. And goalkeeper speaks for itself I think.

On the impact of playing three successive away games at Leipzig, Arsenal and Brighton & Hove Albion...

That’s part of our lives [and] that’s also what the players are used to. If they play Champions League or, like last season, Europa League, you know these challenges are there. You also know they are experienced in this, how to take care of their body, what to do immediately after the game and in the days after to prepare themselves in the best possible way. For this game, we have three days in between, so that’s more than we had before the Leipzig game. It’s also more than we have for the Brighton game. Unfortunately for us, for all these three games we have one day less in recovery than the three teams we face, but that is also part of a season and part of our lives. I think these players are experienced enough and they get the help of a fantastic staff to be in the best possible way physically prepared for the game. It’s my job also to prepare them in a tactical way as well.

On whether he has matched or exceeded his own expectations so far...

That’s a bit similar [of an] answer [to the one] I just gave. There were not expectations from me; it wasn’t like that I was on my holiday thinking about, ‘After 10 games how many points do I want to have?’ No, the only thing I was thinking of was, ‘How am I going to try to bring the best out of this team, that has been done for so long by Jürgen [Klopp]? How can we continue that and how am I going to do the individual meetings with the players, the team meetings with the players?’ And you don’t think about points. For me, the way I think about it, it’s about the process we are doing, what we do on a daily basis, and that – in my experience until now – leads in the end to points. That’s why I didn’t have expectations coming in when it came to the amount of points we needed to have after one, two, three or 10 games – but there were expectations from me [about] the way I wanted to see the team playing. I think that is matching my expectations at the moment.

On conceding late chances in the last three fixtures...

I think every game has its own story. So, the Leipzig game, I just said about the difference in the period of rest we had in between the games. That could be a factor where Leipzig were, in the end of the game, a bit better than we were. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but it could. I think when I look at the Crystal Palace game it was one or two transition moments where we were still, in my opinion, dominating the game but we were a bit unlucky or we didn’t we have the rest [of the] defensive [set-up] good enough in order to concede, combined with some set-pieces. I think the last chance Chelsea got was also from a set-piece.

I liked the last six minutes of injury time we had at Leipzig, where we constantly had the ball, controlled it and those moments were not difficult. Also, in the Leipzig game, the first chance they had in the last 10 to 15 minutes was from a second-phase set-piece. Also, you concede a set-piece if the other team is a bit stronger than you at the moment. No, I am not worried but I prefer to see that we dominate until the end of the game. It is also good to see that if we have to defend that we have a team that defends with 11, with two outstanding centre-backs and a goalkeeper that makes saves as well.

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