ReactionWhy Andy Robertson sees the ideal balance as Liverpool pursue Premier League title
Andy Robertson feels the blend of experience and youth in Arne Slot’s squad provides the perfect balance as Liverpool strive to win the Premier League title.
The Reds remain six points clear at the top of the table, having also played one game fewer than second-placed Arsenal, after Saturday’s comprehensive 4-1 victory over Ipswich Town at Anfield.
Dominik Szoboszlai, Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo (two) scored for Slot’s team, before Jacob Greaves grabbed a late consolation for the visitors.
Liverpool have won 16 and lost just one of their 22 top-flight outings so far this season and Robertson, a veteran of the 2019-20 championship-winning side, told Liverpoolfc.com: “I think we’ve got the balance – young players that are excited and just kind of living in the moment probably, and then you’ve got experienced lads that have been there and done it and we’re trying to push them and keep them concentrated.
“You saw that when we went 2-0 or 3-0 up – me, Virg [Virgil van Dijk], Ali [Alisson Becker], Trent [Alexander-Arnold], Mo were trying to keep the others focused, and to be fair to them, they have played in big games before and they know what it means.
“To be fair to them, they’re all pretty switched on, so it’s an easy job. But it’s important we keep pushing because the teams behind us aren’t going to go anywhere.
“We’re the ones to catch and they’re going to keep trying to push us all the way, and it’s up to us to try to keep our noses in front. The only way to do that is winning games and being consistent.
“So far we’ve done that but there’s still a long way to go.”
Read the rest of our post-match interview with Robertson below.
On a dominant team performance…
Yeah, it was a really good performance. These games can always be difficult, we know that, against teams that are fighting for their lives down the bottom and Ipswich have got a lot of quality, which we knew about going into the game. It was about bringing our qualities to the game and I think we really did that in the first half with getting a comfortable lead and I think we deserved that. Then second half we really controlled it up until the last five minutes and obviously it’s frustrating to lose the clean sheet, but I think 4-1 was a pleasing afternoon.
On Szoboszlai’s opener and how he has been threatening to score from range in recent weeks…
Yeah, he scored a couple in the warm-up and he looked as if he was getting his range in. He’s got so much quality and I think he hit the bar last week so he’s been getting closer and thankfully that got us on the way. Then I think we just kind of kicked on, in the first half especially, and created a few chances and luckily we could put it in the back of the net, which made a difficult afternoon fairly comfortable.
On Salah scoring 100 goals at Anfield and Gakpo’s scoring record in home games…
I think the lads are kind of pushing each other, we’re all trying to push each other. The lads up front are producing goals, you saw that with Darwin [Nunez] last week when it didn’t look as if we were going to break the deadlock and then he comes off the bench and does unbelievably. Obviously Mo’s been doing it for seven-and-a-half years now and hopefully he can keep continuing doing it because we need our main man to keep scoring goals. But it looks like just now, when he doesn’t score goals then other people step up, which is always the sign of a good team. But we have to keep that going because there is still a long way to go, there’s still a lot of football to go, and we need to just keep on pushing on and hopefully we can stay on top.
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On earning another three points and the strength of the Premier League…
The Premier League is the toughest in the world for a reason, the teams are quality from bottom to top. That’s why they’re in this league and I think for us, being at the top, we’ve shown how tough the league can be because we’ve struggled against the likes of Southampton, Ipswich in the first game of the season, Wolves, people like that that are down at the bottom of the league and are still fighting. All the games against them have been so close and you look at Arsenal [on Saturday], 1-0 [win] against Wolves, and obviously really tight games. So yeah, it’s tough and it doesn’t get much easier – we go to one of the most in-form teams in the league next [Bournemouth], who got an unbelievable result against Nottingham Forest. That’s certainly not going to be easy down there, especially when they are high-flying and their last couple of results have been unbelievable. We need to be at our best to get anything next week.
On whether he is getting any better at enjoying wins at this stage of his career…
You enjoy the wins, of course you do – that feeling of knowing we’ve done a job and it’s another game ticked off. But you just move on to the next, you can’t dwell on it because the next game is only 72 hours away or whatever. Games come so fast now that we all just move on. [Sunday] will be recovery, lads will be preparing for the game and next minute we’re already in Holland. The schedule is intense, it’s really busy, and I think when you enjoy it is when you know you’ve achieved something. We’re nowhere near that yet. Hopefully we can celebrate something at the end of the season, but we know there’s still a lot of work to do to make that happen.
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