In an exclusive interview with Sky Sports, Liverpool manager Arne Slot says he is not getting carried away by his perfect start at Anfield; watch Man Utd vs Liverpool, live on Sky Sports Premier League, from 3.30pm on Sunday; kick-off 4pm
Sunday 1 September 2024 15:50, UK
In an interview room framed by a reminder of Liverpool's six European Cups at their training ground, a senior member of staff shot in ahead of a chat with Arne Slot to offer a neat summary of the new head coach.
"He doesn't do romanticism, he does wins," was said.
The 45-year-old, off to an unblemished start, co-signed those words by dropping the shoulder on any emotive approach heading into the Super Sunday showdown with Manchester United, live on Sky Sports.
Slot believes poetry happens on the pitch, not in front of the press. He wants supporters to be seduced by Liverpool's football, not his soundbites.
He possesses a pragmatism that has stretched to the team's playing style, with discipline and control off the ball significantly elevated.
Slot refuses to get swept up or away, filing the first two victories of the season against Ipswich and Brentford as the expected state of play.
He tells Sky Sports News the showdown at Old Trafford is where the real measurement of his Liverpool side begins.
Arne, two wins from two. One of the most notable elements so far is the amount of control Liverpool have out of possession. Has that been one of your key changes to introduce?
It's been a good start, but I said it after the game against Brentford that we have to understand the competition we faced. Brentford and Ipswich are two really good teams so I want to respect them for what they did, and we had a really hard time playing them.
But I'm not expecting them to be in the top six, so we have still a lot to prove. And if you talk about control, going to Old Trafford is one of the difficult places to have control. And even if you have control, they can still counter-attack you in every moment.
So it's going to be a big test for us if we can manage to do similar things we did against Ipswich and Brentford on Sunday. It's been a good start but with the upcoming fixtures we will see where we exactly are, and hopefully we can show the same and if not, we're going to work really hard to manage doing the same in other big fixtures.
I can tell standards are obviously very high because you don't want to get carried away, but it must be comforting to know the team have adjusted so quickly to your demands. There's not a massive change in style, but there are differences they've cottoned on to quite quickly…
Yeah. But I think the main reason for this is that there are much more similarities between the former style and the current style than there are differences.
And it would be completely normal that there are new things. Even when if Jurgen [Klopp] would've stayed, he would've implemented new things. So football is evolving or is changing. You always try to find new ways of surprising the opponent.
But the thing we did is we kept a lot the same. And then that's why it's also not so difficult for the players to understand what we asked from them. It's just asking consistency over and over and over again.
We're not asking that many new things. We're only asking from them the things they already did well, to not do it six out of 10 times, but to do it 10 out of 10 times.
That's the ideal world: that they will do it 10 out of 10 times and that's what we are working for every day. And that's also what's going to be necessary if you play United because if you are one second or one minute not switched on, they can hurt you in a counter-attack. So we need to be ready.
Has build-up been different this week given the fixture?
I already felt after Brentford that the players are looking forward to playing this game. But if we would do this week completely different, if the players were completely different for this game than for the other ones, I think they wouldn't do justice to all the other matches we play.
So yes, we know the importance of this game but it would be strange if we would've acted this week completely different to all the other ones because that would not be a good thing as well.
You've mentioned counter-attack with reference to Manchester United a few times. Is that the big focus of guarding against on Sunday?
No, I think they have many threats, but one of them is the counter-attack. So we were talking about control and if you talk about control, one of the things you want to prevent is the counter-attack. So that's why I use the word counter-attack a few times, but United has much more weapons than only the counter-attack this season. So but we will prepare the team for that. And let's see how it works out.
Erik ten Hag has been very complimentary of your start as Liverpool manager and the way you see football - have you guys encountered each other?
We did a few weeks ago with the managers' meeting. We saw each other. When we were in Holland we met each other once in a while as well, but not in a way of going out for lunch or dinner together.
But when you play each other, you talk to each other and you get to know each other bit by bit, better and better. And I know Erik but not good enough to say anything about his private life or I don't know how he works. I do know how his teams play, of course, but that's what I know from every manager that I face in the next few days.
You spoke about private life there - have you had a chance yet to personally acclimatise to Liverpool, the city. Any favourite spots to go?
I would almost say if you're the manager of Liverpool, you don't have a private life, but that's a bit exaggerated. Next week I will go back to Holland for a few days, I think and then I will feel private life again. Over here, my private life is mostly in the inside of my house.
And sometimes I've been to a few restaurants, so it's been good. And I like what I'm doing, so I came over here not to enjoy my private life, but mostly to enjoy my life being a Liverpool manager and that's why I'm here. And I've enjoyed this until now a lot.
My private life - especially when my family comes over, then that will be better. But at this moment I'm on my own because they are on holidays, but this will come in the upcoming weeks and months.
You would've had a perception of what being Liverpool manager is like before walking through these doors. Is it how you imagined it to be?
I'm not the type of person that the night before thinks 'oh, how am I going to feel tomorrow' with Anfield for the first time, or the first time coming to this building, or Old Trafford…
Has the attention been different?
I don't feel this massive media attention since I'm here, to be honest. And maybe that will come with losing. So we have to wait and see and hopefully it's going take a lot of time before that's going to happen.
You've joked about the focus on transfers and I'm getting the sense that you are the type of manager that prefers to get improvement on the training pitches as well rather than always looking for solutions in the market?
There are two ways of improving and strengthening the squad, and one of them is absolutely on the training pitch. And the second one could be bringing in new players, but I said many times before, it's not so easy to bring in players of our standards at this club because the players I already have are from a really high standard.
Almost every position we have double in, so there's not much need for us to do a lot in the market, and only if we see there's a real good chance for us to improve the team and the player wants to come to us, then we act. And I've been very happy until now with the players I have, and I think they've earned this trust in the first two games.
On that point of having cover in almost every position. Is it then hard to try and keep all the players happy and share the minutes around? We had the incident with Trent Alexander-Arnold, is it a difficult situation to try and make sure everybody is as happy as they can be?
Yeah, but that's everywhere you work as a manager, that's the most difficult thing. At this moment, I've got today 21 players I think at the training ground, and all of them work really hard and they all deserve to play 90 minutes, but unfortunately, they can't.
And then the most important thing is that everybody is accepting that I have to make the choices and sometimes I make them right, sometimes they might even be wrong, but in the end it's all about accepting the choices I make. Until now, they've done it really well.
And I think the Trent situation was not at all about not accepting my decision. It's been made bigger than it was, I think, for me at least. So everybody accepted it until now. But that also has to do with us winning the first two. And you are tested as a team and as a manager of course, much more if you start dropping points. But again, I'm hoping that's not going to happen in the near future.
Watch Man Utd vs Liverpool, live on Sky Sports Premier League, from 3.30pm on Sunday; kick-off 4pm.
