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