Arne Slot puts focus on training and tactics to make Liverpool contenders

The man in the Liverpool manager’s chair – sorry, head coach’s chair – does not grumble once about kicking off the new Premier League season in Suffolk at 12.30pm on Saturday and was bemused by England’s obsession with transfers. “When I walked in here the screen had Sky Sports on and the whole day they are talking about football,” he says with a note of genuine surprise. “There is a lot of speculation in this country. Is there a player they don’t talk about?” Arne Slot is still coming to terms with the English football industry, clearly. All that matters to Liverpool, however, is how quickly he grasps the English game.

Slot has adapted swiftly to Liverpool’s players and they to his meticulous attention to detail on the evidence of an encouraging pre-season that included victories over Real Betis, Arsenal, Manchester United and Sevilla. Calmer and more controlled in possession than the Jürgen Klopp era, in keeping with the contrasting personalities of the two men, Slot’s Liverpool have also impressed in front of goal as they look to remedy a flaw from last season. But that was pre-season. Newly-promoted Ipswich at a vibrant Portman Road now await Slot for the first competitive game of his Liverpool career and the first league match of his career, as either player or coach, outside the Netherlands. The 45-year-old insists he is well-prepared for the intensity of the Premier League.

“We understand – I understand – that there will be a lot of energy around the place with a newly-promoted team,” says Slot. “We have to match that energy to bring our qualities forward. But until now in pre-season I saw them [his players] working really hard and that is the minimum you always ask from your team. Hopefully we will bring the best football possible. If not, we still work hard and we have enough qualities to win the game in a special moment from someone. But ideally, we will see the progress that we made in pre-season continuing in the Premier League. If not we have to win it in a different way.”

AZ Alkmaar were top of the league in Slot’s first season in charge when the 2019-20 Eredivisie campaign was cancelled because of the Covid pandemic. He led Feyenoord to the title, their first for six years, in his second season as head coach. While reluctant to predict what his debut campaign with Liverpool will bring, and grateful for the quality of the squad that he inherited from Klopp, Slot believes his new club can improve in the Premier League after finishing nine points and 22 points behind champions Manchester City in the past two seasons.

“That question is a difficult one to see [answer] before we play the first game,” Slot says when asked whether Liverpool could build on last season’s third-placed finish. “You always have to see the qualities of the others. We know the qualities of them but where they are at the moment, how they improve and if they improve, and the same for us. It is too early to say where are we, if we are are up there, above them or beneath them.

“That question can be answered in the best possible way after five, six, seven or eight games when we know where we are and where the other teams are. It is clear what our aim is. Our aim is to close the gap and not to make it any bigger than it was in the last two years because the last two years, in terms of points, we were quite far behind.”

Slot may be surprised by the fixation with transfers in the Premier League – or perhaps its obsession with money – but there is good reason for it in Liverpool’s case. His employers are the only Premier League club not to have made a signing ahead of the new season. The Spain international Martín Zubimendi was identified as Liverpool’s preferred target for the No 6 midfield role that Slot wishes to upgrade, but rejected their advances on Monday to stay at Real Sociedad.

It was a serious setback to Liverpool and their new football hierarchy of Michael Edwards, the chief executive of football for Fenway Sports Group, and sporting director Richard Hughes. They were convinced Zubimendi wanted to join, despite previously rejecting Arsenal and Bayern Munich, after a Liverpool delegation had gone to San Sebastián for talks.

“What happened is that we and Richard in particular tried everything he could to try to bring him in,” insisted Slot. “The only thing we can’t do is make the decision for him. And he made the decision not to come. That could have to do with what you said [Sociedad being Zubimendi’s boyhood club] but he is the person who could tell us exactly why he made the decision. We did everything we could, it didn’t work out and that is not such a big of a problem because we still have six midfielders.”

Liverpool are interested in the Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, who impressed at the Euros for Georgia, but Slot rejects the idea a squad can only be improved via the transfer market. “That argument I don’t understand,” he says. “If you don’t strengthen the team you become weaker? That’s a bit weird as normally you’d either stay the same or I truly believe on the training ground you can help players and teams to improve. That’s what happened here in recent years.”

Slot has a more hands-on approach to training than his predecessor and his own obsession, tactics, are drilled into Liverpool’s players constantly. As defender Conor Bradley explains: “We have meetings mostly every day, but that’s only right. He wants to get his tactics embedded into us so he needs to keep having meetings to show us what we are doing well and not doing well. Some are short and sharp, some are longer. They are really good. I learn a lot from them which is the main bit. It helps me understand the way he wants us to play.

“We didn’t really have meetings last year, only the day before the game. There’s differences from what Jürgen did and what the gaffer does now. I’m enjoying learning new things so it’s all been really good.” Let the games begin.