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Arne Slot has insisted that Liverpool is not focusing on Arsenal's sizable gap at the top of the Premier League table, as he prepares to face Manchester City on Sunday.
It's a game that has been billed as a meeting between the two best-placed teams to challenge the Gunners, who have made an impressive start to the campaign. Arsenal currently sits six points ahead of City and seven above Liverpool. That gap could increase this weekend after the encounter at the Etihad.
Should there be a loser on Sunday, significant questions could be asked about its title aspirations, especially against an Arsenal side that has won 10 in a row and hasn't conceded in the last eight.
But Slot said he is only concerned about getting his Liverpool side back to its best following a disappointing beginning to the campaign.
Wins over Aston Villa and Real Madrid in the last week have helped, but the Dutchman wants to see Liverpool build on that form.
"I only focus on ourselves and our main focus is on consistency at the moment," said Slot, when asked about the title race.
"We have lost a few games, much more than we usually do and now we have won two so our focus is on getting consistent and improving and getting players fit and then we will see where that will lead to. But at this moment in time definitely not the only focus we have is the league table."
Slot has been outspoken on the tactics and playing style of the opposition this season, admitting Liverpool has struggled to deal with long balls.
That wasn't the case against Villa and Real, and the Liverpool head coach said on Friday that he hopes City deploy the same tactics this weekend.
"For me we have reached that level of performance in other games as well when the playing style of the opponent was compared to that.
"We always knew we were able to do so, I have shown them many times when playing styles were similar we could do the same as we did against Madrid, so it wasn’t a surprise to me how both games went.
"It was helpful to us the other team did what I expected because in eight out of 10 games this season we have faced a different playing style than these teams played before. But Villa and Madrid did what we could expect and that is always helpful, although there is still a lot of work to be done from the players to get a result like that.
"What we can expect from City is the playing style we always see but the difficult thing is they are very good in it and have very good players so that makes that challenge big again."
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