Arne Slot offers honest Liverpool verdict with Arsenal and Man City comparison - 'Clear and obvious'

Arne Slot has offered his verdict on Liverpool's season to date, with the Reds now 12 points behind Arsenal in the Premier League table ahead of a London double-header

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot spoke to the press after the New Year's Day game(Image: Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has offered an honest assessment of where his team stands at the halfway mark in the Premier League, with the Reds now sitting in fourth spot.

Three points ahead of Chelsea in fifth, Liverpool is 12 behind Arsenal in the standings, and ahead of facing Fulham on Sunday, Slot was asked about his view on the season to date. Several times, he has made clear that judgments can only be made when teams have played everyone at least once, which the Reds will have following this weekend.

"That is a question I didn't expect," Slot said. "Realistically, there are two teams — and by the way, with Villa, but because Arsenal won against them, they created a bit of a gap — that are quite far away from us.

"We should not look at those two at this moment in time. We have had our struggles. We started really well in terms of results but then we had a phase of the season where games were very close but we were constantly unlucky.

"Now we are seven or eight games unbeaten, but if you say this, you feel like 'wow, they are flying through the league'. But that is not what we are doing.

"Every single game we play, it is hard work. It is two teams close to each other. We are mainly the team that is better but not enough. We are constantly within this 20 per cent difference, and then going to the floor or not means a lot for the result.

Arne Slot has confirmed that Florian Wirtz is playing through the pain barrier for Liverpool(Image: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

"I will keep pushing to get the players into a situation where we are more than 20 per cent and then hopefully we can find a moment where we can fly through, but for the first 19 games, it has been a constant battle, close to each other, sometimes a bit lucky and sometimes a bit unlucky."

The goalless draw with Leeds was a frustrating outing for Liverpool, with chances far from free-flowing.

"That's not a nice thing to hear (that the Leeds game was the first 0-0 since he arrived)," Slot continued. "But I think it is clear and obvious that we hardly ever concede chances against the opponents we had in the last seven or eight games.

"But it is also clear and obvious that we find it quite hard to generate chances with all the ball possession that we had. That is not new for us this season.

"What the players try to do is keep trying, bring the ball to the wingers, make the inside runs, doing all the kind of things. But sometimes you need a bit of magic to unlock a game, or a set-piece.

"If that happens, all of a sudden, everything looks much nicer. But that is not our season until now.

"The margins are small, so that could have influenced us, having three, four, five, six points more maybe. But like today and so many other games, if we had done a bit better with set-pieces, we would have had five, six, seven points more as well.

"That could have changed it a little bit. From open play, if I look at Arsenal, Man City and us, I think it is fair that we are not above them.

"That we are so many points behind them, there are reasons for that, which I just explained, but it wouldn't be fair if we were above them, for the way we have played."