Arne Slot feels Liverpool were sometimes too open under Jurgen Klopp as the Dutchman seeks to instil a greater sense of solidity into the Liverpool team he inherited from his predecessor.
Klopp’s attacking, exciting style of play helped Liverpool make fans all over the world during the German’s successful nine-year spell in charge of the Reds, but there was frequently a sense that they could be vulnerable at the back, particularly to counter-attacks.
Slot feels his style of play is similar to that of Klopp, but says he wants his players to take more responsibility on the ball and adopt a safer approach in build-up play in order to keep things tighter.
These tactics have already caught the eye in Liverpool’s opening Premier League game of the season at Ipswich, where full-back Andy Robertson could be seen running behind centre-back Virgil van Dijk to receive a pass.
Reds legend Jamie Carragher said that he’d never seen such a tactic before when analysing the game for Sky Sports, but Slot says that it is all part of his efforts to ensure his players keep the ball better and not being in such a rush to always attack.
“Liverpool used every moment they could to play the ball in behind [before]”, said Slot in a Sky Sports interview with Carragher prior to the Reds’ home game against Brentford on Sunday.
“That meant that the game was sometimes a bit open, especially in the last period of Jurgen. Sometimes I tell the players to get a better judgement in risk and reward.
“So if you can put some balls in front of the goalkeeper, please try and do so. If not, it’s also a good idea to keep the ball, but I’m sure if Jurgen was in the room now he’d say he’d want to keep the ball once in a while too. In general, I see that still some players are trying to play the difficult ball which doesn’t get the reward for the risk they take.
“I believe the one reasons why the players buy in [to my work] is that the differences are not that big. There are only small differences between Jurgen and me and the general idea of how we want to play football is quite similar.”