Slot on young Liverpool's 4-0 FA Cup win

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Slot on young Liverpool's 4-0 FA Cup win   11/01/2025  Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, UK

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00:00It's been a long few days, and it's warm now, yeah?

00:04Happy with the appointment?

00:06Oh, yeah, I think it's a good one.

00:10Yeah?

00:11It's not probably needed.

00:19Good answer, Vinny, good answer.

00:22Go on.

00:23How do you feel about the game today and the performance?

00:27First of all, credits to them, the way they showed themselves here today.

00:33Of course, before this game starts you watch a few games of them

00:38and then you see they're not afraid to press high,

00:41not afraid to play one-for-one, but then you always wonder,

00:45will they do this at Anfield as well?

00:46But they definitely did, so they were not afraid.

00:51And their playing style is also when the goalkeeper has the ball to play it long,

00:55so it's not that they stole this from the team we played last week,

01:00that's just their style.

01:02So I think they showed up in a very positive way,

01:06and for us it was all about the players that haven't played that much yet,

01:11to give them playing time and give some playing time to a few youngsters.

01:15When did you make the decision that he was ready to come into the side,

01:21and how do you feel he repaid that belief you've shown him?

01:25Rio who?

01:26Gouma.

01:27Oh!

01:32I think he's been with us now for half a season,

01:36every time when he comes training with us we see what his qualities are,

01:41so he can dominate one-for-one situations, he's very quick on his feet,

01:46he can change directions really fast,

01:49and I'm always happy if a player makes his debut

01:53that he shows what we see on the training ground as well,

01:57so the fans could see it, and I think the fans liked what they saw.

02:02You could feel this in the stadium in the first half already,

02:04and when I took him out on the reaction of the fans

02:08I think we could see that they liked what they saw as well.

02:11So, a special day for him, making a debut, a win,

02:15and he will sleep well tonight, I assume.

02:18Federico, you looked desperate to score from the moment he came on

02:21and finally got his first goal for Liverpool, so what's the next step?

02:26Yeah, Rio was lucky that Federico wasn't with us in the last two days

02:31because he was sick, otherwise Federico would have started, of course.

02:36Now he can play 45, so we could bring Dom 45 minutes,

02:40bring him out and then Federico.

02:42I think it's nice to make your debut, and if you've made your debut for Federico,

02:49but if you've played for this club already,

02:51then you want to score your first goal, especially in front of your own fans,

02:54and that's what he did now, so that's a good next step.

02:57Let's not get carried away too much, because although I liked the way

03:04Akron and Stanley played a lot, it is in the end a League 2 team,

03:08but it's definitely a good next step for him to be available and even score a goal.

03:27Yeah, that is definitely true, but if a player is fit

03:33and he doesn't get the chance to show it, it's also a frustration.

03:38The only moment a footballer...

03:41How should I say this in English?

03:44The best part of being a footballer is playing, doing well and winning.

03:49If you don't play because the manager makes a different decision,

03:54or you're not available, that is always difficult for every player,

03:57because every player wants to do what he loves most.

03:59Even I would love to play still, but unfortunately that is not possible anymore.

04:08Hi, I'm just on Trent, you've obviously had quite a lot of questions about him recently,

04:13but can you talk about the quality of the girl?

04:16I can talk for hours about that, yeah. Unbelievable.

04:20Yeah, I think the biggest compliment Trent could get

04:25was the reaction of everyone after the United game.

04:29And you look at me like, huh, what are you saying now?

04:32Every player around the world, except for a few, has bad games,

04:39and that's completely normal.

04:42But the moment Trent has a bad game, everybody has an opinion about him.

04:46Maybe that has to do with the contract situation,

04:49I don't know if that wasn't there, if everybody would have reacted in the same way.

04:53But maybe it's the biggest compliment you can get

04:56if you had such a great first half of the season.

04:59And you don't play a good game against United,

05:01for me, for the fans, for you, for all the analysts who saw the game.

05:05But many of them were quite hard on him,

05:10and maybe that's the biggest compliment you can get.

05:15Arne, did you feel it was important to give Trent a chance to get out there?

05:20Obviously he's the only player who started last Sunday.

05:23Did you feel it was important to let him go out there and concentrate on the football

05:27rather than the noise that's been going on around him?

05:31I do think that is important, but that was not the reason to play him.

05:34The reason to play him was that Conor Bradley came back from a hamstring injury,

05:40and two days ago he played his first minutes against Tottenham Hotspur.

05:45I think it's a bit unknown for everyone how our flight was during that night,

05:50so we couldn't land here in Liverpool, so we had to go to Birmingham.

05:53We came home really, really late, and for me it was too big of a risk

05:57to play a player who had a hamstring issue five, six, seven, eight weeks ago,

06:02two days after the Tottenham game.

06:06Yeah, and the only other available full-back is Trent.

06:10As a result of him playing, I think it was good for him to play again in our own stadium,

06:15to feel the reception of the fans again.

06:18That was already fantastic when we played Tottenham,

06:22and that was also special for him today.

06:25I think that will only help him and us,

06:28because if you want to do special things during the season, we have to do it together.

06:32Not only the players, not only the players with the manager,

06:35but definitely the players with the fans.

06:39Last one.

06:41Is there someone you think could go out on loan this January?

06:47The last thing, I don't know at the moment, to be honest.

06:54I think what I like most about him, and with most of the academy players,

07:01is the mentality they have.

07:03That's a big compliment for him, but definitely also a big compliment to our youth academy,

07:07because if you are a youngster and you come to the first team,

07:11sometimes you are used in a way that you might not expect,

07:15although it's common in football,

07:18playing with the other team that has to copy sometimes the team we face over here.

07:23Sometimes you are in a different position, so for him he's a striker,

07:26but if we play 11 v 11 and I make the choice to play Jota,

07:29then on the other side Darwin is playing as a nine,

07:31so he has to play as an 11 or as a six or whatever position we need him.

07:35But he will always, like the other academy players, give all they have,

07:39and James McCollum is also a perfect example of that.

07:42If that is your mentality, you can definitely get the most of your potential,

07:48and that is what's going to happen with him and what that potential is.

07:52We probably need some time to find out if he in the end will be a starter for us,

07:57but he will have a very good career because of his mentality, I'm very sure of it.

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