Liverpool head coach Arne Slot fielded questions about team form, a lack of home advantage of late, and, of course, Mohamed Salah (the latter questions are those he largely did not answer). While the positives
are tempered (no losses in four is not the same as four wins, after all), Slot did spare a moment to discuss the impact Alisson’s return has had on the side while refusing to denigrate Giorgi Mamardashvili’s recent efforts:
“Every time a player is available again, let alone a player that is as good as he is, that’s helpful. But I think Giorgi [Mamardashvili] did a great job as well when he wasn’t there. I don’t think Giorgi or Alisson have had a lot to do in general in games, because we hardly conceded a chance in most games that we played, not all of them but I think [in] 90 per cent of the games we’ve hardly conceded a chance.
“So yeah, it’s always helpful when a player of his quality is back. But I want to emphasise on the fact that Giorgi did a good job as well. But it’s nice to have him back.”
Gone almost unmentioned is Jeremie Frimpong’s absence, but as the club brought Frimpong in initially with an eye to Salah’s absence at AFCON his rehabilitation efforts might well become more central to the squad depth discourse. For his part, Slot is concerned about the minutes played by his core team, and admitted something those in his position rarely do regarding the League Cup:
“I think it is helpful in the upcoming weeks we don’t play as many games as we did until now. I wonder if there have been more teams that have three games in seven days this season. I think we’ve had to do it three times already this season.
“What can I say about this? I am almost happy that we’re out of the League Cup, because if we had to play with 13 outfield players available with any Premier League experience – we have more available, of course, but not players that have Premier League experience – and we have to go [to] Arsenal away on Tuesday again after already so many games played, maybe, maybe, maybe people can understand a little bit better why I made that line-up against [Crystal] Palace, which wasn’t good for me but I did another decision I made for the team.”
“Losing a game of football is never a good idea and that is what happened when we were not in the best run of form. But sometimes players need rest as well. Look at Dominik [Szoboszlai], look at Virgil [van Dijk], look at Ibou [Konaté], look at Ryan [Gravenberch], they have played so many minutes because other ones weren’t available. So, it’s good for them that we go now to a run of games where there is one week rest in between. And players will come back from injuries and when they are back from injuries there’s more to choose from as well.”
Of course matches can help a team find rhythm, but given Liverpool’s form a bit of breathing room isn’t the worst thing at this particular moment — though Slot was clear that having no midweek games over a fortnight period would not necessarily mean loads of time to work in training:
“[Mid-week breaks are] normally definitely beneficial because training time helps to get connection going, although playing time helps with this as well. It’s also safe to say that some of these players have played so, so, so many minutes that I don’t think my performance staff will tell me, ‘OK, let’s go out in the upcoming two weeks and train twice a day.’ I don’t think that’s what they’re going to advise me.
“So yes, there will be more playing time, so there’s more time to prepare for a game, because that is also the difference between us and Brighton; I think they’ve had five or six days to come up with a game plan, train this, optimise their game plan, and it’s the first time after the Inter game we have a session today. If you play in Europe, it’s the last thing you should complain about because this is what we want, but it is the reality for us in the last months indeed.”
Slot was measured and pragmatic, and did not make any promises around form or belief, which is in keeping with his general straightforward approach in these press conferences. He has found the past four matches largely encouraging, however, and I think we can agree with the sentiment even if there’s a long way yet to go. As quoted in the match preview, Slot’s measured optimism is less to do with outcomes and more to do with the efforts put forward by the group available:
“Apart from being unbeaten, I think we’ve shown we have been a team in the last four games that were indeed difficult to beat, that it was difficult to create chances against us. The team worked really hard, put a lot of effort in. [We have] been, again, a bit unlucky in the results but showed great resilience. Four games in 10 days with not a lot of players available is, I think, a compliment to the players that were available, how they managed to get, first of all, some results and, second of all, the work-rate they’ve put in.”
