The Merseyside club Refuses to Abandon Attacking Style In the Face of Poor Run of Form, Says Slot
The Dutch manager has revealed that the club's hierarchy are aligned with his perspective regarding the team's slump and he refuses to compromise their offensive approach in search of a improvement. The head coach admitted that six unsuccessful results in seven outings was unacceptable ahead of Saturday's match against Aston Villa.
Growing Expectations During Tough Spell
The manager acknowledged the scrutiny was intense before his rotated squad were eliminated from the Carabao Cup against the London club. However, he emphasized that this urgency to stop the losing streak is not coming from the Anfield hierarchy or management structure following a significant spending of nearly £450 million.
"They say similar things," commented the Liverpool boss, whose squad will encounter Los Blancos in the European competition and travel to Manchester City in the English top flight.
Team Strength Stays Unquestioned
Slot believes his team "have an unbelievable squad if they are all fit and all ready for the programme we are facing". He mentioned that the summer investment in talents including the attacking midfielder and the Swedish striker, who is expected to be sidelined again against the Birmingham club through injury, had left the club "in an excellent position for the immediate prospects and the distant prospects".
Integration Challenges
When pressed on why his team were struggling to integrate, he answered: "You don't really help me. 'What's causing this?' I provide reasons and people say I'm offering alibis. I can come up with five or six reasons why we are not winning as much or losing as much as we do but, as I consistently state, there are inadequate reasons to have a performance streak as we had now."
- Regardless of whether I could identify 200 excuses
- When you are Liverpool you should not suffer defeats
- Unfortunately six out of seven
Defensive Numbers
Only Burnley (twenty-one) have faced more big chances from open play this season than Slot's team (19). The first-place team, the North London club, have conceded only two. Yet Slot denies the champions have been too open and maintains there is no justification to abandon offensive philosophy for a defensive approach after ten fixtures without a goalless performance.
"In my view we're not conceding a lot of chances so I don't see a reason to modify our philosophy entirely but we must improve in not conceding goals," he said.
Recent Examples
"Against Manchester United, how many openings did we give up? Against Eintracht Frankfurt when we were ahead by two goals, we hardly conceded a shot on target. In all the games we have played so far we haven't conceded a many opportunities. Definitely not. We do allow a bit more than last season but that is related to us being behind early so you play more openly. But overall I don't think that our challenge is that we allow too many opportunities. Our issue is we fail to convert the opportunities we generate."