Every word of Arne Slot press conference as team news and new contract discussed

Arne Slot spoke to the media on Friday ahead of the Aston Villa game this weekend, as the Reds look to end their current losing streak in the Premier League.

The Dutchman was asked about that downturn in form, the fitness of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexander Isak, and Curtis Jones, and clarified his comments around Liverpool’s squad.

The Liverpool boss also discussed how he plans to get the team playing at its best again, and whether he would consider a more defensive approach given the current run of form. Here are the main things Slot said at the AXA Training Centre.

Team news

“Ryan trained with us yesterday and the other two didn’t yet. In the end phase of the injury, things can slow down a bit or go faster. Let’s wait and see where they are.

"Ryan trained with us for the first time yesterday, will train with us today and then we will make the call if he can start. The other two are 99.9 percent not in the squad on Saturday."

Squad depth

"We miss nothing. I am happy that you ask this question. I am completely happy with the team and convinced with the strategy and the policy we have, but the issue is not all of them have had a proper pre-season, or have been injured during the season.

"So then when three or four are injured, you go back to 16 players. I am a firm believer that 20 or 21 players are enough, but then you have to keep them fit as we did last season.

"We are struggling to keep them fitter, for obvious reasons. Alex [Isak] is a great example of this. He came to us on 1 September; a few others have missed out on pre-season, a few others have had injuries in pre-season, so it has been more difficult than last season to keep them available.

"Then a few of them are not available and it comes down a lot to the same players. Maybe last season we were a bit more lucky; maybe this season we are a bit more unlucky.

"No excuses for our results before people say this again, but we had to play a lot of away games with only two days' rest in between. That would have been a difficult schedule for every player last season. I mean that for a player who has been fit all through pre-season.

"That has not been our situation. Then you have to manage it, the upcoming week is again three in seven or eight days. That is nothing to do with squad depth, it has to do with how you get through the season in terms of injuries, availability and players ability to play every game."

Contract talks

“That was the last question I was expecting. My focus is completely getting Liverpool back on winning ways –that’s my first answer. My second answer is that contract talks if they are there we never speak about this in here. The first thought is to win again, that’s where my main focus is on.”

Solve problems

"Just handling the situation as it is. Let me use Alex as an example, he had to do his pre-season inside the season. People will argue ‘why do you play him?’ If I don’t play him I don’t have him available. We need to have him available because otherwise I have to play Hugo [Ekitike] every single game. I was just with Owen Hargreaves when he made the comparison between the two of them and one of them played 34 games last season, and the other 34 and we play 60 over here.

"So I need to get Alex as soon as I can to playing as many games as he can. That has been something not only with him but a few others. Jeremie Frimpong has been in out with injuries, same with Conor Bradley. If one is out, I have to play the other more, so that’s why I have played Dominik Szoboszlai a bit in that position.

“That has been something that every team has. It’s not an excuse for us. What was a bit different from last season is that last season they all had one year Premier League experience as a minimum, and they all were fit at the start and they stayed fit. Now they were not all fit from the start and some players have to play maybe even more than you want them to. That is a risk.

"But we still have more than enough good players available to play the game on Saturday, to play the games on Tuesday and Sunday, but I have to take care of them and that is why I make the decision not to play seven or eight of them two days ago."

Key to changing fortunes

"I think the first half against Palace was also similar to that 60 minutes at Brentford. The thing that gives me the most confidence is the quality of the players and the amount of chances they are still creating. This will lead to them scoring more goals than they have until now. We have to address certain other things.

"But if I am speaking about what we have to improve, people tell me I am using excuses. Maybe it’s better to just say we have to address certain things. But there are a lot of positives as well The quality of the players is the first; the amount of chances we create from open play is still good enough to compete for the positions we want to compete for.”

Prioritize defensive stability

"It does go against my beliefs but I have won games in the past. Man City away 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. 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, it is absolutely not like this.

"Every game, except apart from Palace in the first half when we could be been two or three nil down and maybe Brentford, I thought we deserved more than we got and we hardly conceded a chance.

"Even this week, the team I put out which has hardly played together we hardly put out together we only conceded three big chances but they all went in but that's because they were big chances. I don't see us conceding changes so I don’t see a reason to change our playing style completely but we need to do better."