Slot on Liverpool latest ahead of Palace trip

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Slot on Liverpool latest ahead of Palace trip  04/10/2024  Axa training centre, Liverpool, UK

Transcript

00:00They're going into tip-fix now, these juniors.

00:09Do they have 11 players?

00:12Do they need one sign?

00:14One sign?

00:15Me?

00:17I'm just a goalie coach, man.

00:23Arne, a chance to go, four points clear.

00:25Obviously we can look at the situation as Liverpool having the opportunity

00:29to put pressure on those chasing you at the top of the table,

00:32but how do you see it, particularly with those games coming against Chelsea

00:36and Arsenal after the international break?

00:39Yeah, you always look at the first one, and that's Crystal Palace.

00:42I think they already showed how tough of an opponent they are against the big teams,

00:48like United and Chelsea, in both situations they got the results.

00:52So that's the first game, and that's why it's the most important one,

00:57and then the difficult one for us, 12.30 kick-off after playing on Wednesday evening,

01:01late in the Champions League, facing again a team that has a whole week to prepare,

01:05but that is part of working at a top club, that we face those teams

01:11and we have to be ready for those teams, and that's what we are tomorrow.

01:14And I don't look at this moment about one point, three points, four points,

01:19it's after the weekend, then it's interesting to look at the league table

01:24and not after the game we've played.

01:27What is having a big impact for you at the moment,

01:29the very different stages of their career?

01:31Ryan Gravenberg is 22, what do you make of the progress he's made this season?

01:35And then also we've seen Mo Salah and the numbers he's producing once again,

01:39what enables him to keep producing those kind of numbers at the age,

01:42or what do you see in him that allows him to do that at the age of 32?

01:46I think why players play well has, first of all, to do with the quality they have as players.

01:52Mo has a lot of quality, Ryan has a lot of quality,

01:56actually every player that plays here has a lot of quality.

01:59Now it's up to us, and I say us because not only me, my staff, it's also the players,

02:04to play in the best possible way as a team, and then individuals will do special things.

02:10It was an unbelievable finish from Mo, but the only reason he got the chance to finish

02:16was because Trent Alexander-Arnold made an overlapping run,

02:19and that's why it opened up on the inside.

02:22If you give that space to Mo, then he can score a special goal.

02:28So, again, that's about his quality, it's about Ryan's quality,

02:31but the amount of time Virgil or Ibu plays balls through to Ryan,

02:36where Ryan can turn and then he can play his balls towards all the good attackers we have,

02:41that makes it, in my opinion, a team performance which is really well,

02:47and as a result of that you see individuals playing good as well.

02:51Sorry to ask again, hopefully you understand that.

02:54I have to ask, just to check...

02:56Contracts!

02:58Because that's been that whole speculation about Trent this week,

03:01I just wonder, what can you tell us this week,

03:04anything about Trent, Mo's, Virgil's contract situation,

03:07any possible developments around that?

03:10I was hoping that in your last question you didn't use the word contracts,

03:15because then I was saying, yeah, Trent is doing like this and he's doing like this.

03:19Yeah, it's the same boring answer as always,

03:23and I could really understand if you ask me this once every two weeks,

03:27but if you ask me this after two or three days again,

03:30then you still get the same answer and people feel that I'm boring them.

03:34OK, so try it after the international break again.

03:40Just on Ryan, he's up for the Premier League player of the month,

03:45as you mentioned there, he's only 22.

03:47I just wonder how much further he can go in terms of his development,

03:51how much more he can improve?

03:54If you look at all the signings we've made at this club in the past,

03:58I don't know how many years, most players were underneath 24, 25.

04:04And there's also reason for this, because you expect players from 22 or 23,

04:10especially if they come to a club like Liverpool in this environment

04:14and in the way they've worked here, that you expect progress,

04:18more than you expected maybe from a player that's 33 or 34.

04:22So then it's not that big of a surprise if you bring in qualities like Ryan Gravenberg,

04:28that if you start to work with him you do the right programme

04:32and have the teammates that he has that he can progress,

04:37and that's what we are seeing at the moment.

04:39Now it's up to him to keep the standards as they are at this moment,

04:43and that's a challenge, because he, like all the others, has to play every three days,

04:48and that is also a challenge for all of us, but also for him,

04:52because he hasn't played a lot of games last season.

04:55Now he's already played more 90-minute games than he did in the past two seasons.

05:00So it's interesting to see how he copes with it, but until now he does really well.

05:05Just on Palace, they've had a bit of a struggle so far,

05:08but they finished top ten last season.

05:11Are you surprised at the way they've started, how big a challenge will they be?

05:15I've said many times when it comes to us, and I said it also in relation to Wolves last week,

05:20that if you play six games it's so hard to judge the league table.

05:25The weird thing, or maybe that's not weird,

05:30but they cut some results against United and Chelsea, two top teams,

05:35so the other results were not as they would have probably wanted it.

05:40Last season they finished really strong, lost one or two good players, that's also clear.

05:46But I said it about Wolves last week, and I can say the same about this team,

05:52that they will do better during the season, hopefully not tomorrow of course.

06:00With the international break coming up,

06:02obviously your only defeat of the season came straight after the last one.

06:06Are you a bit concerned about how much your players are playing at the moment?

06:09Do you feel that some of them might need their minutes managed

06:12while they are away with their national teams?

06:15No, the first thing I look at is tomorrow,

06:18and then we will wait and see if again we are the team where,

06:23I think last time you guys told me we had ten players playing all the minutes,

06:28and the next one was five.

06:31I don't know if it's true, but that's what you guys told me,

06:34so I have to assume it's true, because journalists always speak the truth, don't they?

06:42In England they do.

06:46So I don't look forward yet towards the games that are coming after the international break,

06:50but the difference between this international break and the last one

06:53is that this time we play a late kick-off, it's Sunday,

06:57and last time we played it Saturday, so it gives us one extra day of rest,

07:01which is always helpful, especially for the ones that come back with a jet lag from South America.

07:07You said on Wednesday that you didn't create a lot of chances for Darwin Nunez,

07:12is it a case of he needs to work a little bit harder to adapt to your style,

07:16or maybe do you need to look at his needs and the way he plays and maybe adapt to him a little bit more?

07:22It's both. I think it's the challenge we as a staff always have,

07:27to bring the best out of the individuals,

07:29and we try to find different ways of positioning Darwin than Diogo,

07:34because they are not the same players,

07:36so their team-mates also adjust to the player they are playing with.

07:41That's also what I as a manager have to do, and also what we are doing.

07:46Yes, he didn't score in his last game because he was offside as well,

07:51so when we bring him the chances he's able to score,

07:55but unfortunately we couldn't bring him that much in the position we want to,

07:59if I'm completely honest, which I like to be just as a journalist.

08:05Even Diogo didn't have... I think most goals we scored come from our wingers until now,

08:11and Diogo scored two when we played West Ham and then he played from the 10th position.

08:15So maybe it's also for us something to look at,

08:19although we score a lot of goals, to bring our striker,

08:22whether it's Diogo or Darwin, even more in positions to score.

08:28Being top of the table, are you worried about people getting carried away?

08:35No, we're at Liverpool, so players are here used to being on top of the table,

08:41so it would be very weird if a player at Liverpool is all of a sudden with his head in the clouds.

08:49Is that also something you say?

08:52So, no.

08:54But if we don't play well tomorrow, people will probably come up with that,

08:59instead of saying their players did well or we maybe did other things wrong,

09:03but I don't see this and that would definitely not be normal.

09:07For two reasons, these players are experienced enough

09:10to understand the league table after six games as well,

09:12and the schedule we had, compared to some other teams.

09:15Second of all, Virgil, Ali, Trent, Robbo, they won the league here.

09:22Mo, they won the league here, they won the Champions League here.

09:26So for them it's a nice thing to be on top of the table,

09:30but I'm not expecting them to watch their mobile every second of the day

09:34seeing them being top of the table.

09:39First of all, it was me who came up with the stat about players needing special training.

09:43I can confirm it was definitely me.

09:46You mentioned earlier about the 12-30 kick-offs after playing on a Wednesday.

09:50Now, lunchtime kick-offs have been quite a debate for quite some years,

09:54but one thing that's not often mentioned is how often people play away from home.

09:58Another stat for you, since 2017-18, this will be the 40th 12-30 kick-off,

10:03and 30 of those have been away from home.

10:06Now, currently Premier League rules around playing lunchtime up in Europe

10:10and you kind of govern playing away in the European games.

10:13Are you surprised that playing away in the subsequent league game

10:16isn't brought into consideration?

10:19In general, I think the league where I'm coming from, in Holland,

10:23there they are more aware and they try to help the teams that play in Europe

10:29more than it happens over here.

10:31But to be fair to the English FA, our schedule here is so tight that it's so, so difficult.

10:39And I think it's also something that has to do with the people sitting in front of me.

10:45So, for the television stations, I have the feeling I do an interview every day.

10:50So, that is why we think I play at 12-30,

10:56because I think they can pick which team they want to have on 12-30,

10:59and then it's nine out of ten times Liverpool is included.

11:02I don't think it has so much to do with the 12-30 kick-off.

11:06For me, it has to do with every away game is difficult,

11:08so I showed them last week that 10 out of 18 away games last season didn't lead to a win.

11:15So, you can then argue if it's 12-30 or if it's just difficult to play an away game,

11:20and we can come up with Newcastle and Forrest,

11:24and there were two others where there were last-second winners.

11:28So, that shows you how difficult it is to play an away game,

11:32especially for us, in this league.

11:37Because we play so many times at 12-30, people talk about 12-30,

11:42I think we have to talk about an away game, that is difficult.

11:45Because if 12-30 was a difficult time to perform,

11:49then I'm a really stupid manager because we train every day at 12 o'clock.

11:55So, yeah, I don't see the idea behind it being that difficult, performing at that time.

12:07Is Kepa Pieter going to be available for the weekend?

12:10Wait and see, he didn't train for the last two days.

12:13He came in today to see if he could train, and if he can I still have a decision to make,

12:19because we can only select 20 and he hasn't trained for a few days.

12:24But first of all we have to wait and see if he can even train,

12:27and if he can then it's my decision, our decision, if we bring him to the game or not.

12:35Good luck.

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