Arne Slott gave an update on his contract, club woes and player injuries on Friday at a press conference ahead of Liverpool’s Premier League game against Aston Villa.
Arne Slott has revealed that negotiating a new contract with Liverpool is not on his mind as he focuses on getting back to winning ways. The Reds have endured a tough spell in the Premier League recently, losing four straight in the top flight.
Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Manchester United and Brentford have all been on their side of late, with Liverpool languishing in seventh place in the table. This is a big blow for them as they aim to defend the Premier League title they won last season.
Ahead of Saturday’s clash with Aston Villa, Slott was surveyed on a range of topics, from injury news to the reasons for the Reds’ recent poor form. Here, Mirror Football breaks down some of the most pressing lines from the slot conference at the AXA Training Center on Friday morning…
read more: Arne Slott uses the example of Alexander Isaac to explain Liverpool’s downturnread more: Alan Shearer has no doubts or sympathy about Arn Slott’s sacking
I’m not thinking about a new contract.
Asked by the media about new contract talks at Anfield, Slott seemed visibly surprised, especially given the club’s recent form, which has seen them lose six of their last seven games in all competitions.
Asked whether negotiations were underway between the Dutch and the executives, he laughed and replied: “Yes. “This is the last question I was expecting.
“I think my focus should be completely on getting Liverpool back to winning ways. That’s my first answer.
“And my second answer is, we’re never going to talk about this here, even if there are contract negotiations going on. But first, let’s start winning again. That’s my main focus.”
The 47-year-old arrived on Merseyside last spring as manager Jurgen Klopp’s successor and has signed a deal that will keep him at the club until 2027. But extending his stay is clearly not at the top of his priority list at the start of the season, with the club holding off on new contract talks with Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah last season.
“We’re missing nothing,” Slott says of the team.
Despite raising concerns after Liverpool lost 3-0 to Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup by complaining about the team’s depth, Slott admitted in his latest press conference that his team is “not lacking anything” at the moment. When asked about the current crop, he explained: “We haven’t missed anything. I’m glad you asked this question.
“I’m completely happy with the team, I’m happy with all the quality that we have, I’m completely satisfied with our direction and strategy. But the problem is, if I were to point out a problem, not everyone had a proper pre-season or was injured during the season.”
“So if you get three or four injured, you’re back to 16 players. I’m a strong believer that 20, 21 players is enough, but we have to keep them healthy like we did last season. And I’m working a little harder to keep them healthy for obvious reasons.”
“Alex (Isak) is a great example of that, he came to us on September 1st. It was more difficult than last season to get everyone available because a few others missed pre-season and some others were injured during pre-season. And if a few of them are unavailable, it puts a huge burden on the same players.”
“Maybe last season we were more lucky, and now we are a little more unlucky. And before people say this, I can’t make excuses for the result, but we had to play a lot of away games with only two days of rest. Last season was a difficult schedule for any player. I mean players who have been in good condition throughout pre-season and the whole season.”
“But that wasn’t our situation. And next week we’ll have three games in seven or eight days again, so I think we’ll have to manage that. So, it has nothing to do with the depth of the team. It has to do with how we’ve had the season in terms of injuries and availability, and whether we have players who can play every time for two games in three days.”
It comes after Alan Shearer criticized Slott for his controversial choice of words following the defeat to Crystal Palace, with the manager lamenting the team’s limited options despite spending £400m on new players this summer.
Latest information about Ryan Gravenbirch
Elsewhere in the press conference, Slott provided a positive update on midfield maestro Ryan Gravenbirch, explaining how the Dutchman has returned to training after recovering from an ankle injury sustained in Liverpool’s 2-1 loss to Manchester United earlier this month.
“Ryan trained with us yesterday, but the other two (Isaac and Curtis Jones) haven’t done it yet,” he said, before being questioned about other players’ timescales. He added: “As I’ve said many times, in the final stages of an injury, things can either slow down a little bit or they can progress quickly.
“Let’s see where they are. Like I said, Ryan trained with us for the first time yesterday, and he’ll train with us again today, and we’re going to decide whether he can start, yes or no. The other two are 99.9% sure that they probably won’t be in the squad for Saturday.”
It comes as Isak is currently recovering from a groin problem he sustained against Eintracht Frankfurt, Jones was absent with a similar problem during Liverpool’s defeat to Brentford at the weekend, and both will miss the midweek game against Crystal Palace.
I have no plans to change my style
Despite suffering a significant losing streak, Slott also stated that he has no plans to change his team’s style of play in upcoming matches against Aston Villa and Manchester City. Asked about the possibility of playing from the back or building from the defense in the future, Slott said: “It goes against my beliefs, but I’ve won games in the past, so I’m talking about City away here. It may go against my beliefs, but we needed to play like that in the second half.”
“So in certain situations I’ll be flexible and adapt. But I don’t think, at least in my opinion, it’s a case of us conceding goal after chance and being too open. That never happens every game, apart from the Palace game, because we could have been two or three points down in the first half.
“And probably against Brentford. I think all the other games were worth a lot more than what we got. And even this week against the team I played with, the first time we played together, we conceded very few chances. I think they only gave us three big chances. Unfortunately they conceded all three, but that’s because they were big. They weren’t chances, they were big chances.”
“I don’t see any reason to change our playing style completely because we don’t seem to be conceding too many chances, but we certainly need to work harder not to concede goals.”
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