NewsArne Slot press conference: The boss on momentum and improvement
The Reds touched down in Germany on Tuesday afternoon ahead of their latest Champions League outing – a league-phase encounter against RB Leipzig – on the back of a 2-1 success over Chelsea on Sunday.
That result was enough to return them back to the top of the Premier League standings, while so far in Europe his side have maximum points after two matchdays.
Nevertheless, speaking to the media, Slot underlined the areas in which his team can be better – though he is thoroughly satisfied with the approach of his players.
Read on for a summary of the head coach’s pre-match press conference at Red Bull Arena…
On the importance of a good result against Leipzig to maintain momentum..
I never think it is a good idea to lose a game. No matter where you are in the season – it is always better to get the best possible result and that’s also what we are trying to bring in tomorrow. We look at it game by game and we try to bring out the best possible team for tomorrow, for the competition we face in Leipzig, who are doing really well in the Bundesliga.
They had the difficulty of playing two very difficult teams in the Champions League, that’s the difficult thing of this format – that after two games you can have a league table that doesn’t tell the whole story because you can face teams from group four or you can face the difficult ones in the beginning, and that’s what they had. [They are] a very good team and, yes, the fixture list is tough, but what would you expect if you play Champions League and Premier League? The fixture list is then tough and that’s what we like, that’s what we want. We have to deal with it and we like to deal with it.
On his opinion of the Champions League’s new format after two matchdays...
I don’t think you can have a fair opinion yet because we’re only two games into the Champions League now. If you would say to me, ‘Tell me what you think about it’, because I want to have an answer, I tell you, ‘OK, I like it...’ but that is only to do with us having six points out of two games! It has nothing to do with the format. We have to wait and see what the end result of this format is, but you can only judge that after the group stage is done and then see if me, or you or the fans like this new format.
On how Liverpool can improve further...
You can’t ask for much more when it comes to results, but when it comes to what we want then there is always room for improvement. I don’t think we outplayed Chelsea, we certainly didn’t – I think they were more dominant than us with the ball, so in an ideal world I would have seen us dominating the complete game, like we did so many other games.
We are not there yet, but the good thing about this team and about our result was that if you face a team like Chelsea or Man Utd – because we had difficult moments in the United game as well – was that you see a team that is fighting for every centimetre, every metre, fighting for every moment that can be decisive in the game and that’s what we showed. I am hoping in the future, hopefully in the near future, we play a difficult game like the Milan game or the United game, that we are more dominant than we were against Chelsea. That probably that says a lot about Chelsea as well.
I said it before the game, I said it after the game and I can say it one more time – a lot of people in England at the start of the season made a bit of fun about them investing so much money and about all the players not in the squad, but in my opinion in the last one or two years they’ve done really well bringing so many talented players in and now having such a strong squad with such a good manager that they will be up there in the upcoming years. That’s my opinion, so let’s see if I’m right.