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Arne Slot has said he cannot make dramatic changes to arrest Liverpool’s slump given the squad is suited to his system and he has little time on the training ground to implement a new approach.
Slot is under increasing pressure before Sunday’s Premier League visit to West Ham having presided over the club’s worst run in 71 years. He has faced calls to drop the under-performing Ibrahima Konaté and Mohamed Salah in recent days, or to shake up his style in an attempt to halt the slide.
But the head coach has insisted a radical overhaul is not the solution, or even an option given his injury problems in defence and the lack of training time during Liverpool’s run of seven games in 22 days.
“Is the question: ‘Should I change dramatically?’” Slot asked. “I don’t know what is in your head but if, for example, you want another system with five defenders that could be an issue. I don’t even have five defenders.
“The system we are playing now suits the players best. They have played this system probably throughout their whole career and there is hardly any training time for us. So it is almost impossible to change our complete idea about football if we play every two days. I think we have played a lot of different lineups for reasons I prefer not to do because everyone was not available. We have used our whole squad constantly.”
Slot is adamant that Liverpool’s quality will prevail and turn their season around. The head coach accepted the experience of Manchester City last season, who endured a run of one win in 13 games but have re-emerged as title contenders this season, is a fair comparison.
“I said already multiple reasons, and I can come up with an extra five or six, for why we are on a run of form like this, but they will never be enough to make up for the results that we have,” added Slot. “I am not sure but Pep [Guardiola] will probably have said the same. For example, we had injuries last season as well. So it is not like this season we have injuries and last season we didn’t so that helped us with a better run of form.”
“But indeed [the example of City is valid] because they have quality and we have quality. The best chance to come out of a situation like this is that we as a team and me as a manager bring the best out of these players again to bring us back to winning ways. If we didn’t have the quality we would have had a big problem. I think we have the quality and we have to bring the best out of them again.”
Slot revealed he has received more support than usual from his father, Arend, during Liverpool’s sequence of nine defeats in 12 games. The 47-year-old said Slot Sr could be critical of his title-winning team last season but is acutely aware of the difficulties his son is currently going through. “As a dad, he knows how difficult it is for me,” said Slot. “To give me another hit is not the best thing you can do as a dad. He is a bit more supportive now than when we are winning.”
