Arne Slot on the major change he is trying to implement at Liverpool to get them closer to challenging Manchester City for the Premier League title this season
Arne Slot has pinpointed Liverpool’s away form as the key to closing the gap on Premier League champions Manchester City this season. And the Reds head coach believes silencing home crowds with control and creativity will be integral to that plan, starting with a difficult assignment at Crystal Palace on Saturday lunchtime.
The Reds finished nine points behind Pep Guardiola’s side last time out and collected 10 fewer than City’s tally of 44 on the road. Slot sees that as an area he and his staff can immediately improve and his team have so far won all of their away fixtures at Ipswich Town, Manchester United and Wolves, while a 3-1 victory was also recorded at AC Milan last month in the Champions League.
Slot says getting closer to City’s haul from away days will be vital towards challenging them for the title and he outlined what his players need to do to come through at Palace to end as leaders before the second international break of the campaign.
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“If you are purely looking at it from a data point of view then it was a 10-point difference between the away games of City last season and ours, and the [final] gap was nine,” Slot said. “If you look at the home form of both teams it’s the same.
“I think there are areas we have to improve and that is why it is so important to take control over every game, not only the home games but the away ones too. Just to be very dominant in away games that is why I wasn’t very happy with the first 20 minutes at Wolves.
“I think the home and away games of Liverpool are quite similar but in general it is tougher to play away because the home fans cheer very hard if their team gets a chance, they get more confidence from that.
“You play against the same players [as you do at home] but they get more confidence from the fans which makes it a bit more difficult to win an away game. But there were also many home games that were quite tight and maybe then our fans made the difference.
“And creating chances yourselves because fans like to see chances from their team but don’t like to see chances from the other team. But the thing is if you are Liverpool – and also they are one or two other [top] clubs – if we go to say Wolves or Palace and they get a corner kick the fans cheer. So this is what you face when you are a top club.
“Everyone is looking forward to [Liverpool coming to town] the whole week, the Palace fans, everybody is talking about, ‘Liverpool are coming,’ the players are all up for it and that is why it is tough.
“That’s what makes it tough for clubs like us without proper preparation when they have had a whole week of preparation. But the good thing is normally if you are Liverpool, or one or two other clubs, you have great individuals at your disposal as well.”
Slot added: “It’s so important [to keep home crowds quiet]. Don’t lose a simple ball, don’t give away a corner kick, , don’t get a cross in, don’t give them anything that they can cheer for.
“I’ve seen a lot of games of Palace and it is probably impossible for a lot of teams not to get a chance. We’ve seen this in our recent games, I watched City again Palace back here and in the first 10 minutes there was a first counter attack.
“Every team does concede chances and that has to do with the amount of quality every team has in the Premier League, but keeping them away from our goal as much as possible is the smartest thing to do.
“I think it is important to control a game. It is also important to create chances. There are two ways to keep the crowd quiet and that is creating chances yourself, forcing them to make mistakes or press them really high and force them to make mistakes.
“That’s what no crowd likes to see. The other way is for us having the ball for longer periods of time because then they cannot create anything. There are more ways. It is not only keeping the ball. That’s of no sake, only keeping the ball.
“We have to create, we have to press really well and so there are more ways than keeping the ball to keep the crowd quiet. Maybe if they play a lower league team and that team has the ball, the fans are booing but if Liverpool comes up and we have the ball they’re like ‘no problem, no problem, we are still going to support them’.
“That’s the extra challenge you have as a top club, that fans of the opponent are likely they will support them longer than they would against a lower league table team.”
