Arne Slot pushed back firmly after questions about growing fan unrest following Liverpool\u2019s draw with Burnley, asking for context and patience while defending his team\u2019s approach. He made clear he was surprised at the suggestion some supporters were losing faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo people not expect that to be possible for me? To be successful?\u201d Slot snapped when this question was put to him by Jules Breach for TNT Sports. \u201cIt\u2019s new to me, but if you\u2019re one-and-a-half years in the job and have already won the Premier League, when the club has won it twice in 30 years, I\u2019m surprised to hear that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if that is the situation, then I have to accept that. I\u2019ve tried the same things as last season this time around. Every time we\u2019ve been a goal down, I\u2019ve made offensive substitutions, and wherever I can, I am playing a team that is as offensive as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot noted the run of form that has left Liverpool unbeaten in their last 12 matches, though only six of those have been victories. He explained a tactical shift after early-season exposure: adopting greater control of possession to blunt opponents and restrict counterattacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot play attacking football with the amount of ball possession that we have,\u201d Slot argued. \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s a disadvantage that we have that much ball possession, because then people expect more from the ball that you have.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the moment you don\u2019t have it, you have to press really high, because with a low block, you don\u2019t have ball possession. Everyone knows what we need to do in order to make the next step in this transition phase…”<\/p>\n
On the Burnley game specifically, Slot refused to accept the idea the match was unattractive. \u201cA Liverpool manager, let alone the players, can never be happy with a draw at home to Burnley. But if you exclude the result, which you can never do\u2014it was the best performance against a low block since I\u2019ve been here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe registered 32 shots, we had 75% ball possession, and so I couldn\u2019t have asked for more from my players than they showed\u2014except for the fact that we had to score more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t do that on purpose. We had three balls cleared off the line, we missed a penalty, so I completely disagree with people who didn\u2019t find that game attractive. The signs were only positive, and then the week before that, we played Arsenal, where many people were happy with our performance as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdd to that the fact that Mo Salah is back, and so there are a lot of positives. There\u2019s more room for positivity than the result against Burnley gave us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot also highlighted Salah\u2019s return and underlined that the forward did not start any of the matches in the current unbeaten run, noting the first five of those absences were the manager\u2019s explicit decision. \u201cIf the fans were frustrated with the way we played against Leeds and Sunderland, I completely agree with them as we didn\u2019t create enough chances, but what is mainly forgotten is that [was] when Mo was out,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot rejected claims fans were losing faith after the Burnley draw, citing possession and chances…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[795,175,172,1325],"tags":[299,1305,1012],"class_list":["post-6127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-burnley","category-liverpool","category-epl","category-unbeaten-runs","tag-arne-slot","tag-bench-selection","tag-burnley-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}