Slot on Liverpool injuries ahead of Leeds clash

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Slot on Liverpool injuries ahead of Leeds clash  27/12/2025  Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, UK

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00:00I just want to ask you about Florian again, if you don't mind.

00:07You talked about how he's physically got better,

00:10but I just wonder off the pitch,

00:12is it also maybe just getting used to the country and the lifestyle as well,

00:16that he's maybe just become a bit more comfortable?

00:18Because he's still a young man, I suppose.

00:20He's a big move from his own country.

00:22Yeah, he's the only one who could answer that question.

00:26I can only answer from my experience,

00:28being an old man, or at least much older than him,

00:32and the first few months in a different country,

00:35because it was also my first experience going abroad,

00:38it's different.

00:39Your life is a bit upside down.

00:41And that for a manager is probably not the biggest problem,

00:46because I don't have to perform on the pitch,

00:48but I could fully understand that some individuals,

00:51some players need a bit of time to adapt off the pitch as well,

00:54but the biggest adaptation is if you come from abroad this league,

00:58how intense it is.

01:00Because again, today I think even when we play once a week,

01:04you could see that Hugo had a cramp after 70-75 minutes,

01:08and I didn't take Florian out because he played bad,

01:12I took him out because he was hardly able to keep on running anymore.

01:15And that's also a bit of the situation we're in,

01:19but also that tells you about the new players we've brought in,

01:22how big of a step it is to adjust to these intensity levels.

01:26Can I also ask about Curtis Stroud,

01:30his fourth game in a row he's played 90 minutes,

01:32how much has he been maybe enjoying the responsibility

01:35because he really got on the ball today

01:37and was really driving the midfield in the absence of someone like Dominic?

01:40Yeah, I think that's always one of his main qualities,

01:43that he always wants to have the ball, no matter what the situation is.

01:46That is 90 out of 100 times very positive,

01:49sometimes it's also smarter maybe to stay away from the ball

01:53or not bring yourself in a difficult situation.

01:56But even if it's a really difficult situation,

01:58he had one in the corner,

02:00he was able to bring himself out of the situation

02:03and play the ball to Ryan.

02:05So I think the first and most positive thing for him

02:09is that he's able to stay fit for four or five games in a row now,

02:13and he's played indeed 90 minutes every single time.

02:18That might have to do a bit with his performance,

02:21but if you look at our bench,

02:24you didn't saw any player that is a midfielder

02:27that has played more than 10 minutes in the Premier League so far.

02:31So that's why I'm so pleased with our current results,

02:35because if we would have dropped points,

02:37people would have probably talked about the fact how many players we miss,

02:41but we don't drop points,

02:43so that's why no one is talking about the players we miss.

02:45Maybe because they only talk about how much we spent.

02:48The goals that Liverpool concede,

02:55are they changing games too much now?

02:57I mean, you were really on edge the last ten minutes at Tottenham,

03:00again after Wolves scored today,

03:02it seemed to take the flow and rhythm out of an awful lot of your play,

03:07and you're kind of hanging on in matches that you shouldn't need to.

03:11Yeah, I can only agree with you.

03:15It tells you how important goals are in a low-scoring sport,

03:18because that's what football is.

03:20A moment can change momentum,

03:23and that's what we saw last week and what we saw today,

03:27because I think in both games,

03:30still the moment we concede,

03:32it was the performance you would like from a Liverpool team.

03:35Although in the first half of Summit Ball possession,

03:38in an ideal world I see even more chances created.

03:41Again, we didn't score our first two chances.

03:44By the way, I completely didn't understand

03:47why the second time Maka hit the ball on the post,

03:50why that was offside.

03:52Obstructing vision, was that the reason?

03:56OK, now compare that to the City one.

03:59But OK, it didn't run in, so that's not so important.

04:04So yeah, goals have a massive impact on the momentum of a game,

04:13and that's what's been shown in the last two games of ours for sure.

04:18I'm sure you think you should be doing better game management,

04:24but game management-wise, how are you going to be able to implement that?

04:29A way to have game management is also have the opportunity

04:33to make substitutions,

04:35so maybe to bring an extra defender in or these kind of things,

04:38or in last year, a lot of times when we were 2-1 up or one goal up,

04:43I brought Wattaro Endo in.

04:45But yeah, I already said, I don't know if everybody notices it,

04:50but we miss quite a lot of players,

04:53and that's why it's so special for these players that are fit,

04:56that they bring the results in that we are bringing in.

05:00Arne, you touched on the new signings

05:03and how you've been without some of them,

05:05and obviously you're still without Leonie and Iza,

05:07but do you feel that in the second half of the season,

05:10as a whole, you'll see more from them than you have in the first?

05:14The way that Florian's improving, Jeremy's fit again,

05:17do you think of it?

05:19Yeah, yeah, for sure.

05:20But I think that's not only for the new players we brought in,

05:22I think if you bring in a lot of new players

05:24and a lot of players are gone,

05:26then usually, at least if I do my job a bit well,

05:30you see them playing better football after they've been a bit longer together,

05:35there's more training time, there's more playing time together,

05:37then usually they play better.

05:42And I think you could see this last season,

05:44because that team was the year before all the same with Jürgen,

05:47and last season, especially the first half of the season,

05:49I think we played some very good football,

05:52that's helpful if players are longer together.

05:54I think history has shown many times the longer players playing together,

05:58the bigger chance you have of winning something,

06:01or if you add players to what you have,

06:05that's also a serious chance of improving.

06:08If you replace what we've done, then it takes time,

06:12and then usually it gets better after a certain period of time.

06:16Unfortunately, Giovanni Deone, we won't see him this season,

06:21and Alex is going to take a long time before we see him again.

06:24So, that is all right now.

06:26You can do the numbers, how much money that is,

06:29and if you combine that with how much we've sold,

06:33that's maybe an interesting story to make.

06:37Last one.

06:39To ask again about the full-backs,

06:41you mentioned a few months about when PSG were,

06:44how much you liked Hakimi and Nuno Mendo,

06:46how much did that influence the signs of Frimpong and Kerkers,

06:49and how much are they sort of fitting into that mould

06:52that you maybe envisaged with?

06:57We had to make one change in that position because Trent left,

07:01and that was not ideal for me,

07:06because I think Trent has been so important for this club

07:09and was very important for me last season.

07:12So, when we looked at the options in the market,

07:15Jeremy was one of the first we noticed

07:17because he has that pace you were just talking about,

07:19similar to Conor, similar to Milas and Robbo as well.

07:23So, that pace is one thing going forward,

07:26but you also need that pace if you face, for example,

07:31the forwards of Paris Saint-Germain,

07:32but I can come up with many teams also here in the Premier League,

07:35who have very, very, very fast wingers.

07:39So, yeah, it's definitely helpful to have them.

07:44Unfortunately for them, not always the same players have played in front of them,

07:50so they're still a work in progress, especially because too many times

07:56not all of them have been available and too many times we had to change

07:59because of load management, because players weren't able,

08:03players were injured, but bit by bit we see players and teams improving as well,

08:10and the team improving as well.

08:12Sorry, very last one.

08:13In terms of Leeds next, I was just wondering what the main takeaway,

08:16what the main learning was from that crazy game just a few weeks ago,

08:19could you cope with another day like that?

08:22Yes, I could, but I don't prefer to cope with another day like that.

08:28But it's part of our lives in football, we have highs and lows,

08:32so we have to accept that.

08:34What I mainly took and take from it is that we struggled a lot,

08:39or much more when they went to a four, when they started playing 4-3-3,

08:43in the last 20 minutes of the game.

08:46That's also when they scored their goals.

08:49Okay, the first one was another four-intervention,

08:53but the second one was a real good goal of them,

08:56the third one a set-piece.

08:59But we struggled more when they played with four than when they played with five,

09:04so I will definitely look at both,

09:07but especially the moment when they went to a four at the back.

09:11Thank you very much.

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