Slot Talk: “I Told You How Many Quality Players Liverpool Already Had”
The Liverpool boss was thrilled by how his depth delivered as the Reds swept aside West Ham 5-1 in the League Cup.
Liverpool’s quiet summer transfer window under new head coach Arne Slot had many fans and pundits raising their eyebrows, with just one first team signing arriving for the 2024-25 season seen by many as a recruitment failure for the club.
Slot, though, has insisted since he arrived that he inherited an enviably strong and deep squad when he signed on to take over for legendary manager Jürgen Klopp, and the 5-1 League Cup victory over West Ham on Wednesday put proof to that.
“I constantly told you guys how many quality players we already had,” Slot joked when he spoke to the press afterwards. “I think you all knew and that’s also what we showed in the last weeks and today again that we have many quality players.
“What pleased me most was that even if a lot of new players come in they don’t come in and try to have an individual performance. They try to work really hard for the team, they have a lot of desire not to concede, and those are good performances.”
The Reds started somewhat slowly against West Ham, as one would expect for a changed side with a number of players who hadn’t had many minutes in the opening month of the season, but as the game progressed the quality shone through.
With two games a week on offer for the foreseeable future, that depth will be needed if Slot’s Liverpool are to challenge for silverware, and it will be interesting to see how he now mixes and matches his options in the coming weeks and months.
“We try to prepare them during the week and during the first months of pre-season to prepare them for so many games,” Slot said of the unceasingly busy fixture list. “Sometimes there are small margins, sometimes you can be unlucky as well.
“If you saw what happened to Rodri, that is so unlucky for him. So it’s trying to prepare in the best way possible but you need a bit of luck as well so as a staff we try to prepare them in the best way possible to get through this period without injuries.”
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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