Arne Slot insists neither he nor his Liverpool players are getting carried after a 3-1 win at home to Leicester City on Boxing Day took them seven points clear at the top of the Premier League. After the Reds fell behind in the sixth minute to Jordan Ayew’s goal, Cody Gakpo levelled before half time and Curtis Jones made it 2-1 shortly after the restart ahead of Mohamed Salah registering his 19th of the campaign to settle the game.
On a day when second-place Chelsea lost at home to Fulham, the Reds moved further clear and their game in hand against Everton means the leaders are in an enviable position ahead of the final fixture of 2024, against West Ham United on Sunday. Slot, though, says his squad are keeping their focus as Liverpool start to become firm favourites for a 20th league crown this term.
“If you are in this game for a long time, you know 20 games before the end, you don’t look at it,” Slot said. “There are so many challenges that are still ahead of you. I think it was two months ago that we were two points behind Manchester City and look at what happened there.
“In terms of injuries and suspensions and then a bit of bad luck, this can happen to any team, so it is too early to be celebrating with so many challenges. But it is of course nice to be the team who we are to be able to do this.
“But you have been at all these games and I don’t think there was an easy win for us during all of these. Could have been easy against Spurs but they scored three and I was happy that we scored a sixth goal.
“That tells you how difficult it is to win if all of your players are available, let alone if you pick up some injuries and suspensions. That is why we just have to take it one game at a game.”
Slot added: “It is important to win a game and I think we should win against Leicester at home but I had the same feeling against Fulham and Nottingham Forest, so you always have to do a lot to win a game, especially in the Premier League and that was also today because we went 1-0 down. The league table is something we are aware of but we understand how many games there are to go.
“I think that [Gakpo goal] was crucial. I was happy with the first-half performance today. There was only one minute I wasn’t happy with and that was the minute we conceded a goal. That was the only thing we didn’t do well, we created chances, threatened them with balls in the box with many players arriving in front of goal.
“I could not have asked for that much more but it was crucial to score the 1-1 just before half time because that lifted us up and you could see that in the second half, we kept on going, it helped us and it worked the opposite way for Leicester. They felt like now it is going to be tough.”
