‘They say similar things’: Arne Slot believes Liverpool bosses share his explanation of Premier League slump | OneFootball

Arne Slot believes he has retained the support of his bosses at Liverpool, despite their extraordinary slump, and says they share his explanation of why the Premier League champions have lost six of their last seven games in all competitions.

Slot is in the worst run of his career while Liverpool host Aston Villa on Saturday after suffering four consecutive Premier League defeats and having gone out of the Carabao Cup to Crystal Palace.

The Dutchman is in regular contact with director of football Richard Hughes while Liverpool’s other decision-makers include Fenway Sports’ CEO of football Michael Edwards, Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan, FSG president Mike Gordon, FSG chairman Tom Werner and FSG’s principal owner John W Henry.

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Slot believes he retains the backing of the club’s key decision-makers (Getty Images/Getty Images For Th)

He feels injuries are a major reason for their slide, along with a wait for new players to gel, and sees no reason to change his style of play. Slot says his employers agree with his analysis.

“For me, they say similar things,” he said. “I speak mainly to Richard and once in a while to the others. They also see similar things as what I see. For me the conversations haven’t changed a lot. We always talk about the game and it’s always nicer to talk about the game if you have won than if you have lost.”

Slot is conscious he has been accused of making excuses and is keen to address the narrative. “I give an explanation and people say I’m coming up with excuses,” he said. “I can come up with five or six reasons why we are maybe not winning as much or losing as much as we do. But every time I say there are never enough excuses to have a run of form as we had now.”

Slot argues results are an unfair reflection of recent matches and said he does not need to adopt a more pragmatic style of play.

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The Reds have lost four games in a row in the Premier League (Liverpool FC via Getty)

“It does go against my beliefs but I have won games in the past – Manchester City away [last season] maybe went against my beliefs but it was necessary to play it like that in the second half – so I would be more than open to adapt in certain situations,” he added. “But I don’t think the story is, at least in my opinion, that we concede chance after chance after chance and are too open.

“We hardly give away a chance and we create a lot. That is the way I see it. But we do give away a bit more than last season but that always has to do with us being 1-0 down so you take a bit more risk. But in general I don’t think that our issue is that we concede too many chances. Our issue is we don’t score the chances we create.

“Against [Manchester] United, how many chances did we concede? And we were so offensive because every time you are 1-0 down you need to take the risk even more. Against [Eintracht] Frankfurt, for example, when we were 3-1 up, we hardly conceded a shot on target.”

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Liverpool have not kept a clean sheet in their last 10 games (Action Images via Reuters)

In those seven games, with Liverpool beating Frankfurt 5-1 and losing the others, they have had more shots in five, and fewer in one. They have had more shots on target in three, and fewer in three others. They have had the higher expected goals in four. They allowed their opponents 83 shots, 37 of them on target. But over the period in which they have gone pointless in the Premier League, they have the highest expected goals against in the division.

However, Slot continued: “So in all the games we played until now we haven’t conceded a lot of chances. Not at all. If I go one by one, which you could do, then look at the Brentford game, for example. The first goal is a set-piece, the second goal is a counterattack when we were perfectly organised but that wasn’t defending of our standards, and the third one is close to a ridiculous penalty. We were defending low in that moment, by the way.”

Slot’s defence has brought teething troubles for new full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez. The Hungarian came from Bournemouth but the Dutchman, bought from Bayer Leverkusen, is one of five summer arrivals without Premier League experience. Slot has noted that last season’s squad, Federico Chiesa apart, all benefited from it. It is one issue, along with the difficulty some players have in facing three games in a week amid injuries.

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Kerkez is one of Liverpool’s new recruits who is yet to settle in Slot’s side (AFP via Getty)

He nevertheless is adamant they were right to have a smaller squad as he insisted Liverpool pursued the right approach. “I’m a firm believer all the squads I had were 20 or 21 players that can play because if you have too many it’s already a struggle to make a squad,” he explained. “We have an unbelievable squad if they are all fit and all ready for the programme we are facing.

“I am completely happy with the team, all the quality that we have and completely convinced with the strategy and the policy we have. If these players are all fit, we have so much quality. This club is in such a good place when you look at the quality we have for the short-term future and the long-term future.”