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