Arne Slot challenges Liverpool to improve their record away from home against their title rivals as the Reds prepare to visit Arsenal this Sunday
Arne Slot accepts Liverpool will need an excellent away record against their rivals if they are to stand a chance of winning the Premier League title, starting with Arsenal away on Sunday afternoon. The Reds took just three points from a possible 15 in away games against the rest of last year’s top six and were beaten 3-1 by Arsenal on their most recent visit to the Emirates back in February.
Victory this time out would take Slot’s league leaders seven clear of Mikel Arteta’s men in the title hunt, with second-place Manchester City at home to struggling Southampton on Saturday afternoon.
Slot believes it to be too simplistic to say those games will decide the destination of the championship but he challenged his players to improve on last season as they aim to continue their 100% record away from Anfield in a campaign that has seen them travel to Manchester United, Wolves, Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town, on the opening day.
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“If you look at Arsenal last season, I think it was seven points in between Arsenal and Liverpool,” Slot said. “The home game was a 1-1 draw, the away game Arsenal won. So if we could change the away result, which we can’t, to a win for Liverpool that would have been one point difference between the two teams.
“So that’s why if you play your competitor, those games are vital, just like all the others, but maybe these ones even a bit more. But it’s too simple to say ‘if you win those games the league table would have been different’.
“To win those games, those are the hardest games to win, so you need a certain quality to win those games and if you have that quality then you can compete for the league, in my opinion.
“So to win it, it is so simple ‘if we win this one and this one and this one, we would have won the league’ but there is a reason why you didn’t win it because probably the other team is stronger than you or it is so hard to beat the top five or six teams in an away game.
“And the teams who are able to do this like City and Arsenal last season were, they have a very good chance to win the league so if you want to win the league you need many, many points, then once in a while you have to win an away game, I think.
“It is such a long time ago but I can remember the first year when Pep Guardiola was at City that they hardly won any away game and the second year I remember it was the first one, Chelsea away, Kevin De Bruyne scored a solo goal and they won for the first time a big away game.
“So if you want to win this league, no matter who it is, you need to win a few of the five, six, seven very difficult away legs, we talk about Newcastle, we talk about Chelsea, about Aston Villa, about Tottenham, about City, about United and about Arsenal.”
