Liverpool boss Arne Slot is less than 48 hours away from his maiden Premier League game.
The Dutchman will lead Liverpool out as the Reds face Ipswich Town on August 17th at 12:30pm.
TNT sat down with the 45-year-old for an in depth interview.
Although Arne Slot was eager to compliment Jurgen Klopp, he also identified areas where Liverpool could improve.
Slot suggested that his side will take less risk when the reward is so low in possession.
The Liverpool boss suggested Liverpool players can take so much risk to gain so little.
Speaking to TNT Slot detailed the style of play Liverpool fans can expect from him and the similarities between him and his predecessor.
On his style of play, the Dutchman said: “So many managers will give you the same answer, everybody wants to have possession, everybody wants to press high”.
“Not everybody but most of them want to and that’s also what I want.
“It’s not what you want, it’s what you have to show, and I think you saw in the matches we’ve played in pre-season that there are a lot of similarities with the style Jurgen implemented over here.
“We both like to have the ball, we both like to be really intense without the ball. Jurgen likes to be really intense with the ball, which I like at certain moments as well, but I also don’t mind if we keep the ball, and maybe Jurgen didn’t mind as well, to keep the ball a bit longer.
But the manager also outlined what he believes need to change and the improvements he is hoping to see in the players.
“From what I’ve seen from the boys in pre-season and also in training sessions, they sometimes have to be a bit better aware of the risk-reward. And by that I mean, sometimes they take so much risk on a difficult ball that can only lead five metres up the pitch.
“And if you can put someone in front of the goalkeeper, take as much risk as you want but they sometimes tend to over-risk simple passes.”
“I’m not sure if they’ve learned it but most of them are quite young. Young players always want to go to goal in every second of the game, which is sometimes a good thing to do.
“But if you had to run a lot to get the ball back – which we want because we don’t want to wait, we want to get the ball back as soon as we can, sometimes you have to run a lot.
“Then if you do get it back, sometimes you need a lot of time to recover from that. In those moments keeping the ball is better. I noticed already [in the club’s August 11 matches] that every time we played the ball in behind, fans were [cheering] and if we kept the ball a bit longer they were sitting there like, ‘what’s happening now?’”
Being a fan himself and understanding the desire among fans for entertainment, Slot revealed he does not want to deprive Reds fans of excitement.
Liverpool under Klopp entertained, even when results didn’t go their way and Slot believes a slight refinement could even improve what came before.
“We have to keep this because I don’t like to see a boring game. I’m a fan as well so I like to watch and see good football like the Jurgen and Pep [Guardiola] era, so everybody wants to see football where something happens.
“I’m not telling now that we only keep the ball for no use but sometimes keeping the ball a bit longer can only help us.”
