Q&AArne Slot's pre-Nottingham Forest press conference: 'It's going to be a very difficult challenge'

The Reds travel to the City Ground on Tuesday night sat top of the standings ahead of the round of midweek fixtures, with the hosts six points behind Slot's men in third position.

Read on for a summary of what the head coach had to say to reporters at the AXA Training Centre prior to the trip to take on Nuno Espirito Santo's outfit...

• Nottingham Forest v Liverpool: Team news

On seeing Forest as title contenders and how vital a moment this game could be in the season...

I've always said you can judge the table best halfway through the season. That moment is there now, so if Forest is then up there with us, with Arsenal, Chelsea and [Manchester] City and all the others then they definitely are a team that is in competition with us and with the other teams. They deserve to be treated like this if you look at the way they play and if you look at their results. It's going to be a very difficult challenge tomorrow to get a result.

On whether his team 'owe them one' after defeat in the reverse Anfield fixture...

I think they already showed in retrospect how good of a team they are. Leading up to that game I think they had two draws and one win. In general, I think when Liverpool loses a home game that is something we don't expect. I think in that moment of time I also saw the stat that Virgil [van Dijk] played 100 games for Liverpool and only lost [twice at Anfield]. So, for us to lose then on that day was for me hard to take, as you probably experienced.

Now looking back at it and seeing where they are in the league it's not been as such a shock result as I thought it was back then. They had a very good game plan. [They] changed the wingers that normally played and brought them in at the end and they made a difference. Although I expect their wingers that have done so well to be in the starting XI tomorrow. That's something he changed back then and that worked really well for them during that game.

On whether having a near-full squad to select from is an 'advantage'...

Yeah, but there is also this moment two or three weeks ago, or two months ago, or in two weeks [that] things can be totally different. But it's definitely helpful for every manager everywhere around the world to have all your players available. That is what we almost have at the moment. That's a very positive thing because we play so many games and not only us, but all the teams that are in Europe in England play a lot of games because there's the League Cup and FA Cup to be played in as well. It helps if they are available, but you can't compare all situations together.

Some teams have squads that are even bigger than us. Some teams don't have a squad that's bigger than us. But the teams we are in competition with, of course they would love to have all their players available. There are also teams that have a lot of players in their squad. Ideally, like I said, you want to have all your players available and that's what we are having at the moment. Let's hope that almost all of them can continue going like this.

On how excited he is by the next crop of Liverpool youngsters after last weekend's Emirates FA Cup win...

That's very important for every club, but especially for this club. I think I said it after the last League Cup game, not at Tottenham [Hotspur], but the one before, that this club always brought talents through the ranks. It's nice to see that again there are a few youngsters that are having an impact already in our training sessions, but like you saw on Saturday also during the game with Jayden [Danns] scoring, with Rio [Ngumoha] having a good game and with Trey [Nyoni] assisting to the fourth goal that Federico [Chiesa] made. It's always nice because it gives good energy in the building if youth and Academy players train with us, do well, play with us, do well. That gives nice energy in the team as well.

On the challenge Forest pose and their style of play...

I think what every manager tries to do is find the game plan or the playing style that suits the players best. I think that is what the manager of Nottingham – Nuno – did very well. The playing style they have suits them really good. They have a hard-working team. Without the ball they work really hard. Chris Wood is a great example of that. But he's also a player that can hold the ball and they have very fast wingers and players in the midfield that can bring these wingers in promising positions, mostly in counter-attacks, but they are not only counter-attacks, that's definitely not true, they've scored and been a threat by counter-attacks a lot, but they can also bring the ball, if the ball is on the floor they hardly take the risk of building up from the goalkeeper. But if they bring the ball to the floor then you can see the quality they also have when they want to play. I think Nuno did a great job in implementing a style of play that suits the players very well.

On whether he will devise a special programme for Diogo Jota to maintain his fitness...

I think all of them have for 80 per cent the same programme and then the last 20 per cent is for every player individual. They do individual work in the gym as well. It's not only for him that we have a special programme. We try to have a special programme for all the squad players we have. It's true. He is, like all the others, someone I like to have in my squad. I like to have him available and when it comes to building up his match fitness, I think you also saw that it went from 30 minutes to 30 minutes to a bit more and a bit more. Now he's ready to play 90 and that's a good thing because we have to play many games in the upcoming weeks. It's nice to have him available and hopefully it stays like this for the last four or five months.

On Jota wearing the captain’s armband on Saturday and him being a senior member of the squad now…

A hard worker, [which] you see on the pitch as well. Tries to become a better player every single day. Is a player that is in my opinion good in both parts, so he is a threat when he is attacking but for a No.9 – like Chris Wood, I just said – he works really hard as well. I think that's modern football, you need to have 11 players that work really hard. Back in the days when I played you could be a No.10 like me that didn't do that much without the ball. But in modern football that's impossible if you want to compete. So, Jota is an experienced player, that was also one of the reasons why he wore the armband. I think he served the club the longest [of] the players that were in the team at that moment. Let's hope he stays fit.

On what he knows about the rivalry between Liverpool and Forest in the past…

I'm aware of that but of course I didn't know the exact years, but I did know that Forest was a big force in English football for a long period of time. That has been quite a long time ago and now they are all back at it. They are doing really, really well and Nuno is doing an incredible job, but if you look at the amount of money they have spent it's not a complete surprise that they do well this season.

On how he judges his own first half of the season…

I said [previously] you can judge the league table better halfway through the season than after six, seven, eight, nine or 10 games. But we also know that in the second half of the season teams improve, for a few reasons. Some teams bring extra players in during the January window. In general, it's a good thing and it should be like this, that if a manager works longer with a team the team starts to play better.

And I think there's even more at stake in the second half of the season, at least that's what you sometimes feel – that's why you see some shocking results in the last part of the season, where teams that are battling against relegation all of a sudden can win against a top-four or top-five team. So, that's why we have to improve and that's why it's a good way of judging the league table, but it's still a long way to go, with for us 19 games to be played and the rest 18.

On whether it has gone better than he could have imagined personally…

I said many times that if you go in to a job you don't think about where we will be halfway through the season when it comes to the league table. What you do try and are focused on a lot is, can we make the players really fit, can we let them work really hard and can we implement a playing style in the best possible way from the start on already? You never know what the other teams are going to do, so I don't think anyone of us would have expected [Manchester] City to be where they are at the moment. Although, you can see already now that they are coming back, that they are winning a game where we are all like, 'Ah, this is City again.' You don't think about these things before the start of the season. You mostly think about, OK, can I let these players play in a way I would like them to play and hopefully the fans would like them to play as well?

On the importance of the opening goal in Tuesday's game…

I think the opening of a game is always very important, especially if you play an away game. Because I assume, and I think I'm 100 per cent right, that the atmosphere in the stadium will be fired up tomorrow before the game and definitely from the start. So, that makes it even more important to don't get that going even more. They are a team that hardly concedes goals and there's also a reason for it: they don't take a risk in build-up. So, mostly when they lose a ball, they have got many players behind the ball. And if they do have to defend, I see 11 players that work really hard to prevent the other team from scoring.

That is something we have in common with Forest and that's probably the reason why we conceded less or just as much. That's probably the main reason why these teams don't concede a lot. And then they have centre-backs that can defend the box really well, so if you bring a lot of crosses in it's not easy to score against them. We've experienced this at Anfield. I looked back at the game and they didn't steal anything because we hardly created a chance. They deserved to win because they made us play a poor game and they were doing really well in that game. We know it's going to be tough, not only because we faced them a few months ago but also we all see how special of a season it is for them.

• Arne Slot: Wataru Endo is important to us, he always gives his all

On what Liverpool need to do differently to the defeat by Forest at Anfield in September…

I watched it back because I wanted to see what we did back then in terms of tactics and what we could do now. I assume, but I'm not sure of course because I don't make the line-up for Forest, but back then it was already a surprise for us that [Callum] Hudson-Odoi and [Anthony] Elanga weren't playing. But they are playing so well now that it would again be a surprise to me if they don't start now. Back then, they didn't start and they played more with midfielders in these positions. So, we have to wait and see. We are prepared for both, of course. But that we have to do better than that game, that is clear. And they have still a similar playing style, like we still have the similar playing style. So we have to look into the details [for] what we can do better than that game.