NewsArne Slot: We're trying to find a balance between chaos and possession

With pre-season completed, the Dutchman is now preparing for the first Premier League fixture of his reign, with the Reds travelling to Portman Road to face Ipswich Town on Saturday lunchtime.

They do so having won four of their six warm-up matches, with victories over Real Betis, Arsenal and Manchester United in the USA followed by a 4-1 defeat of Sevilla at Anfield last weekend.

In an interview with Canal+ ahead of the campaign opener against Ipswich, Slot was asked to explain the ideal manner of football he wants to see from his side.

“Style of play has been with my teams where I worked, I think, always the same,” he said. “There are a lot of similarities with Jürgen Klopp, with the way they played in the past, and I’m hoping we will see these similarities in the upcoming weeks and months.

“We like to have the ball, we don’t like the other team to have the ball… but the Premier League is a league where many good clubs are and many clubs want to have the ball, so we have to fight really hard for us to have the ball.

“And if we have it, we want to score, we want to be intense in everything we do. If we have the ball, we want to score – that’s quite simple of course! We want to be intense in everything we do.

“Maybe the only slight difference there is, is that after we win the ball, I like to go forward just as Jürgen liked it, but I sometimes like it when players try to keep the ball and not play the difficult ball, where Jürgen or the former regime maybe liked the chaotic scenes in and around the 16 a lot as well. They were really, really, really successful with that for so many years.

“But it sometimes also depends a bit on the players you have. I think we’re trying to find the balance between trying to create chaos at certain moments and trying to keep possession of the ball a bit longer in other moments.”

A midfielder during his own playing career, Slot’s coaching journey began with SC Cambuur Leeuwarden in 2016, took him to AZ Alkmaar and then Feyenoord.

Across three years in charge of the latter, Slot guided the Rotterdam club to an Eredivisie title, a KNVB Cup success and a Europa Conference League final.

This summer’s switch to Liverpool, therefore, marks his first challenge outside his home country.

“The good thing is that also abroad and even in England, they play 11 v 11,” he said with a smile. “In the rest of the world we drive on the left side, but in England they drive on the right! But in football, they just keep it with 11 v 11! So that’s a good thing! That’s not going to change.

“The teams we face are different, the managers I face are different, but the same things apply. The week or the two weeks before you play the next opponent, you try to understand in the best possible way how they play and how you have to react on that.

“In football there are a few systems that teams can play; in Holland, they play 5-3-2, 5-2-3, 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and the same thing applies to England. So there are a lot of similarities I think.

“But from what people told me, and I’m going to experience this, in Holland maybe one or two other stadiums had the same atmosphere as the Feyenoord stadium, but everybody is telling me that the atmosphere in England is everywhere you go to, it’s going to be loud. And maybe because of that reason, the intensity of the game is really high.

“That might be a difference to what I’m used to, but like I said, many things are also the same and I’m obviously looking forward to experiencing the Premier League.”

After the trip to Ipswich will come Slot’s first competitive Anfield match in charge of the Reds, when Brentford visit in the league on August 25.

And he is hoping to once again create a harmonious connection between the players on the pitch and the supporters cheering from the stands.

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“Of course [I’m excited for that],” said Slot. “I already said a few times, I left a club where the fans were really special. If you would ask anyone in Holland which stadium they hate most to play in, I think everybody would answer you – if you are from the other team – they would answer you De Kuip, Feyenoord’s stadium.

“And I think in England it’s the same at Anfield. The other teams don’t like to play at Anfield, because of the fans and because of the style of play of Liverpool.

“We have to make sure that the style of play stays the same, and I’m 100 per cent sure that the fans will be the same as the last 100 years or longer they have been in supporting Liverpool.”