Arne Slot explains why he is confident Liverpool will turn things around | OneFootball

Arne Slot has vowed to “fight on” in his bid to turn Liverpool’s floundering season around and insisted his players have not lost their fighting spirit, despite their wretched run.

Slot has been in the worst spell of his managerial career and has seen Liverpool beaten nine times in their last 12 matches, culminating in a 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest and a 4-1 loss to PSV Eindhoven.

For the first time in 71 years, Liverpool have lost three consecutive games by three goals but while Slot has accepted there will be questions about his position, he is determined not to give up and believes his players have shown they are not giving up, either.

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Liverpool endured another Anfield humiliation in midweek (Getty Images)

“We fight on, we try to improve,” said Slot. “It is about doing what this club is about, it is keeping fighting and no matter how difficult it is we have to fight together. But it would also be nice if we would reward ourselves in the moments we play well.”

Slot feels heads only dropped among the Liverpool team in the last few minutes of the losses to Forest and PSV but argued they showed their commitment with how much they ran and in the way they had come back from 1-0 down against the Dutch champions.

“In the first 85 minutes, or for large parts of the game, I saw a team that have had a lot of setbacks recently and were still able to fight against that,” he explained.

“Not always with the end product you would like because fighting is of course part of what you should do but if fight was enough to win a game of football then it would be quite easy. You need a little bit of something extra as well, you need quality playing one-v-ones, getting crosses in the box and arriving with the right timing.

“But I see a team that never gives up. I see the running stats, I see it in the chances we create after we go down, but I agree the last five or ten minutes against Forest and the last five or ten minutes of [Wednesday’s] game were not the same as the other minutes we played. For me that is not that this team lacks fighting spirit, no. Maybe in the last few minutes but not in the rest of the game.”

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Arne Slot's side lost their ninth match in 12 games when beaten 4-1 by PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday evening (Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

Liverpool, who have lost six of their last seven Premier League games, go to West Ham on Sunday and Slot expects to have goalkeeper Alisson back after he missed the PSV game with illness.

He is waiting to see if £100m signing Florian Wirtz, who has sat out Liverpool’s last two matches, is able to return while he thinks that striker Hugo Ekitike, who went off against PSV with a back spasm, could be in contention.

He added: “Ali trained again with the team so we hope and expect him to be available at the weekend. Florian will have his final day of rehab [on Friday] so if that all goes well he could train with the team on Saturday.

“Hugo, they don’t expect it will be a big issue so let’s see for the weekend. It shouldn’t have to be a big issue.”