Liverpool manager Arne Slott is adamant he still has the full support of the club’s owners, despite suffering four consecutive Premier League defeats. The reigning champions comfortably led by five points but suffered a heavy defeat against Crystal Palace in late September, followed by losses to Chelsea, Manchester United and Brentford.
To add to their woes, Liverpool lost to Galatasaray in the Champions League, Palace in the Carabao Cup, and suffered a disastrous six defeats in seven games against Aston Villa. Unless things improve, last season’s title-winning side could find themselves 10 points behind leaders Arsenal by the time Unai Emery’s side arrive at Anfield on Saturday night.
But Slott insists his discussions with Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards have remained consistent throughout this difficult period.
“To me, they say similar things,” Slott said. “I mainly talk to Richard and sometimes the other guys (Edwards and FSG) and they see similar things that I see.
“The conversation hasn’t changed much for me. We always talk about the game, but it’s more fun to talk about the game when we win than when we lose.”
Slott also hit back at his critics after he was questioned for making wholesale changes to his squad after midweek’s defeat to Crystal Palace.
He said, “Please tell me if I’m wrong, but I think (the reaction) was when I said something about the team that week, was it taken as a criticism or an excuse?”
“What I was saying is that if all these players are healthy, we have very high quality. If you look at the quality that we have for the short-term future and the long-term future, this club is in a very good position.”
“But I used Alex (Alexander Isaac) as an example, but I don’t want to go into individual players because sometimes players don’t want their names mentioned because of whether they’re healthy or not. Not all of the players were ready to play three games in seven days from the beginning.”
“And when you have four players injured like we are now, it’s tough going into a program like this. I used that to describe Wednesday’s line-up. I didn’t use it as an excuse for the loss against Brentford or the loss before that or the loss before that.
“I did it because Ibu (Ibrahima Konate) and Virgil (van Dijk) had to play a lot. Joe Gomez missed the whole pre-season and Macca (Alexis Mac Allister) missed the whole pre-season.
“Alex missed the whole pre-season game. If you have 20 players and you have three players who are unavailable, and that 20 includes Rio Ngmoha and Trey Nyoni who are young and can’t even play three games a week, then the focus is on the other 15 players, who are probably not all used to playing Premier League (or) Champions League games every three days.”
“By the way, it would have been difficult even for last season’s team if we had to play three games in seven days, so this is the worst possible scenario.
“I only used this to describe my line-up, not as an excuse for losing against Brentford or Manchester United. “If everyone is healthy and ready for the program we are facing, we have an incredible squad.”
