Liverpool boss Arne Slot has been speaking to the media before Saturday’s Premier League game against Chelsea at Anfield (kick-off 12:30 BST).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
On team news, Slot said Alexander Isak was back in training yesterday and they will see how much he can do today to “see how much we can use him tomorrow”.
He added that Alisson and Mohamed Salah haven’t trained yet but are “close” to returning and Giorgi Mamardashvili will train today and they will “see how he is going to react”.
On the latest on Florian Wirtz and Ibrahima Konate, Slot said: “Ibou had a personal reason not to be there [training on Wednesday] but was yesterday and today again and Florian was a bit unwell but he trained with us yesterday also.”
On their current form and performances, the Dutch boss said: “Usually this goes hand in hand, if you have good performance, it usually leads to results. That’s why performances are very crucial and important. It is not always like that in football, sometimes you can have a poor performance and still win. Over the long term, it helps if your performance is good.”
Did you know? Liverpool have lost 11 Premier League matches this season, their most since the 2014-15 campaign under Brendan Rodgers, when they lost 12.
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Slot added: “The first and main aim is to qualify for the Champions League and we have shown this season we need a good performance to get results. The opposite has been true a lot of times, where we’ve had a good performance, but the result wasn’t there. And we’ve not had many times a poor performance and still had a result. We need to have a good performance to win a game.”
Did you know? Liverpool have conceded two or more goals in 16 different Premier League matches this season – only in 2012-13 have they done so more often in a campaign (17 games).
When asked about having a positive end to the season, Slot responded: “This season has gone in a way that even if we have three wins and three positive results, I don’t think everyone will still be positive about how the season has been.”
Slot added: added: “Three wins won’t silence the criticism. Therefore, we need to have a much longer run of results and performances. That is not where we are focused on now, the focus is on three more games. Next season will also be different in terms of personnel.”
On mentality, Slot said: “For me, mentality has absolutely nothing to do with age. It’s more about the personality of the player. Of course, you can inject it in the transfer market but we have a lot of players who have the right mentality to play for this club.”
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[BBC]
