The Dutchman spoke to reporters at the AXA Training Centre this morning, with the game against Thomas Frank’s side on Saturday (5.30pm GMT).
See a summary of Slot’s briefing below…
On Mohamed Salah…
I’ve said last week actions speak louder than words. We’ve moved on. He was in the squad [versus Brighton & Hove Albion] and he was the first substitution I made. Now he’s at the AFCON playing big games for himself but also for the country, so I think it’s fair to them – but definitely also for us because we are going to play some very important games – that all the focus for him is over there and there should not be any distraction from me saying anything about his time at Liverpool, because what I said: we’ve moved on after the Leeds interview and he played against Brighton. Now he is there, so it’s fair for the country, for him and also for us to talk about Tottenham and other games and for them to be fully focused on their tournament.
On Liverpool’s impressive goalscoring record against Tottenham in recent years…
But it took us 92 minutes to score away against Brentford, against a Thomas Frank team last season, so you cannot compare… Yes, you can compare certain things because [it is] mainly the same players. They’ve added a few players to the team and with Thomas Frank [there is] a new manager, so I don’t think you can compare our games of last season with this season. Even more so because we not only added, we lost a lot of players as well, so you cannot compare this team of ours to last season – even with the same manager – and you cannot compare our results of last season [against Tottenham] with facing a Thomas Frank team.
On what potentially going into the top four with a win ‘ would do for the spirit and the feeling around’ the club…
I think winning always gives a good feeling and good spirit for a team that had so many changes during the summer. The league table, the first 12, 13, 14, 15 teams are so close to each other that winning or losing matters a lot, with one exception although [Manchester] City are coming closer and closer to Arsenal now, but Arsenal are quite far away from us. I think the main thing for us is to build on what we are building on in the last five games. I think with the exception of Brighton maybe, because we did concede a lot of chances against them, but the other games we were solid defensively and that’s a good base, combined with that the players are getting more and more ready to compete at Premier League intensity as a group. So, I think we can expect more from us in the upcoming part of the season than what we’ve shown before, but I assume that everybody would expect that [of themselves] as well.
On having a week in between matches…
I think it’s always helpful for a manager to work on the training pitch with the players, especially if you bring in players – not all of them but a few of them – a little bit later in the window. With Alex [Isak], for example, he’s the best example of that on the first of September. But you can also influence players if you play a game and you do video meetings. So, it’s not an excuse for our results, not at all. But I would prefer to have more of these weeks than we have because it’s a way of implementing either new things or pointing out more and more or stressing on things we have to do better than we did them before. I liked it and next week is the same, so that is almost a mini-pre-season for us.
