Arne Slot pleased with Liverpool pre season after 4-1 Las Palmas win

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Arne Slot pleased with Liverpool pre season after 4-1 Las Palmas win  11/08/2024  Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, UK

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00:00Hi, good afternoon. It's been a good pre-season for you, results-wise, hasn't it?

00:12But how are you feeling in terms of where you are fitness-wise with everybody after today?

00:18Are you where you want to be?

00:21No, ideally we would have had them from the start, all of them,

00:24and then players like Virgil and all the others then went off after 67 minutes,

00:29they could have played the whole game, but I'm pleased if you look at the situation,

00:34so these players had to go to a holiday, a lot of them came back really strong,

00:39and the ones I had from the start have stayed fit for all the time,

00:43so yeah, pleased with the fitness level the team has,

00:48and also with our injuries at the moment, and that's an important thing in pre-season.

00:54So it's still a very important week ahead now for you having everybody to train together?

01:01Yeah, but not only an important week, an important year to come,

01:04we have to improve day by day, and I think we saw today in both games a lot of good things,

01:11but I can make a big list also of things we have to improve, which is completely normal.

01:17Some of them with certain new ideas, we have only been with this for a week,

01:24so they have to adjust on that, they have to adjust on each other maybe with some new ideas,

01:30so it's normal that we are far from perfect, but even being far from perfect we can score four,

01:37so that's a good start.

01:39I know it was only a friendly, but how did you find your first experience

01:45of being at Anfield playing in front of fans?

01:48Yeah, that's always nice, no matter which team you lead,

01:52always if you play a home game it's always nice,

01:55and if you lead a team with 15,000 fans it's nice,

01:58if you lead them with 50,000 it's even nicer,

02:00and if you lead a team that has 60,000 fans that are also constantly behind the team,

02:05similar to my former club at Feyenoord, then there are always games to look forward to,

02:10and I got a taste of it today.

02:14Can I just ask you about strengthening the squad in the transfer window that remains,

02:19nobody has been brought in as yet, are you still on the lookout?

02:24I think as a club like we are, we are always looking if we can strengthen the squad,

02:29but it's not so easy to strengthen the squad if you've seen them at both games today,

02:33so I've said many times before that I've inherited a real strong team,

02:40and if we can and if we think it's possible we will strengthen the squad,

02:45but only if we think we can and if it's possible.

02:48So no names like Martin Superbending?

02:51You can come up with every name you want, of course!

02:54Can I just ask you about Fabio Carvalho,

02:57has agreement gone through with Brentford for his move away from Liverpool?

03:02From what has been told to me there is an agreement in place,

03:08but I haven't spoken with a club, and I was fully focused today on this game,

03:15so I don't know exactly what the status of him is,

03:19but that was of course the reason why he wasn't selected today.

03:25I just want to set that he wasn't involved in the games today,

03:29is that a fitness issue or something going on in the future?

03:32No, there's load management, the way we call it,

03:36and of course a player like Ned, who's been training with us for a long time,

03:40deserves to have some playing time as well.

03:43So it's a combination of a player that has already made a lot of minutes,

03:46and we don't want to take the risk of him getting injured,

03:49as we don't want with anyone,

03:51but with him we thought it was best for him not to start today,

03:54and that had all to do with load management,

03:57and that Ned also deserved to play today.

04:06You've rotated quite a few of the deep line midfielders,

04:09do you have an idea of an ice-cold team,

04:13but who will be put off that box?

04:16It was a bit fluke last season, Paz played there, Endo played there,

04:20do you have an idea?

04:22You mean with deep, you mean the number six position?

04:26And your question is?

04:28You wanted to try a few there,

04:31do you now have a better idea of who is more suited to be in that box?

04:35Yeah, sometimes that also had to do with the players we had available,

04:38the ones I've tried over there.

04:41I think we've seen mostly Wata, Endo over there, or Ryan,

04:46and in the previous game even Dominic was a bit lower.

04:50But I have quite a good idea of which player suits there at this moment,

04:54in my opinion, best,

04:56but like I said, we're only one week working together with some players,

05:00so sometimes you feel, oh, this is the best number six,

05:04but then the combination with the other two might maybe not work out that well.

05:09So it's not to say that the ones that play today will play next week or the weeks after,

05:13we're still in a situation where we constantly evaluate

05:18which is the best team for us and which is the best line-up,

05:22and today you saw this, but it's not to say it's the same next week.

05:27Very nice one, Nick.

05:29Josh, you can take on for your name to be sung today in the first game,

05:34how do you feel about the way the fans in the city have embraced you so far?

05:38No, only positives.

05:41What you hear is that they sing my name,

05:45but when I'm in the city, or I've stayed for a while in the Titanic,

05:49those people and also the one at AXA have been really nice to me,

05:53but it's mostly like this if you become a head coach,

05:56people are nice to you, especially if you haven't lost yet,

06:00although we did lose once against Preston.

06:04So that helps, but in general I think people have been nice to me

06:08and have given me a warm welcome, not only me, but the rest of my staff as well.

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