‘Something I dislike’ – Slot suggests Liverpool fans are right to have one particular grievance | OneFootball

Arne Slot has said that he empathises with Liverpool fans who’ve been disenchanted with the performances of his team this season.

Having romped to the Premier League title at the first attempt, the 47-year-old has found the going much tougher this time around. The Reds are currently languishing in sixth place and face a battle to simply qualify for the Champions League, with the Dutchman coming under increasing external scrutiny.

Much has also been made of how LFC have played as well as the litany of poor results, with John Aldridge remarking last month that the team had ‘lost [its] DNA’ and was showing ‘no real drive [or] desire].

Slot: ‘I want the fans to like what they see’

Slot appeared on the latest episode of The Reds Roundtable, and he confessed that even he has found it hard to watch some of Liverpool’s more sterile performances this season.

The head coach said: “As a manager, you can win the league, you can win the Champions League, you can win an FA Cup or a League Cup, but the biggest thing you can win is that you can play the nicest football to watch.

“Although at this moment of time, fans might argue this a little bit, it is absolutely something I am aiming for. I always want to have the ball, I always want to be intense, I want the fans to like what they see.

(Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)

“That is something I dislike the most – I would almost say even more than our results, even more than the league table – that not all of our fans are every single moment of the game seeing us as a joy to watch. The hardest thing is I even understand, because I agree with them.

“Trophies are one thing, but being a team or a club or a manager that stands for something, that stands for good football, is I think in the long-term even worth more.”

Recent games have seen improvement, but that can’t be a false dawn

Ultimately, many Liverpool fans would rather see their team win trophies in a pragmatic manner than play exhilarating football without having anything tangible to show for it, but over the years we’ve seen that the two certainly don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

At least Kopites have witnessed 10 goals from the Reds in their previous two home games, a welcome antidote to the frustration of watching us struggle to break down Leeds and Burnley at Anfield in recent weeks, occasions on which the Premier League champions sorely lacked guile in the final third.

Slot’s job has undoubtedly been made harder by having to cope without key players through injury and ask those who are available to continue going to the well with scant recovery time, but for all the quality that LFC still have, they ought to be higher in the table and playing with more conviction.

It was evident from the Dutchman’s first few weeks in charge that he yearned for Liverpool to have control in games, and more often than not last season they got the balance spot-on.

It’s been different in the current campaign, with a frighteningly high concession rate over the autumn prompting the head coach to implement a more pragmatic approach, only to then see his team become overly impotent at the other end of the pitch.

The last couple of matches have seen an ideal balance restored, and that’s what Slot will need to ensure from his side on a consistent basis from now until the end of May.