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4 min readFeb 6, 2026 02:25 PM IST
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot during a Premier League match. (PHOTO: AP)
Days after Liverpool FC coach Arne Slot shared that the team’s style of play and entertaining fans is “worth more” than winning trophies in the long term, the 47-year-old coach has said that his team sometimes struggles against sides that try to take the pace out of the game. With Liverpool, now sixth in the table, set to face Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday, Slot explained how his team refuses to indulge in the time-wasting other teams use and how they insist on pressing high.
“If you don’t play good football, it’s (almost) impossible to win something or to achieve something sustainable. We never do time-wasting. We always want to press high. We always want to bring the ball out from the back. But unfortunately, we face teams that have a different approach, which is completely fair for them. Every team should play the style best equipped for playing against us, and it’s shown that we sometimes struggle with that style. It’s not always possible for a team to get pace in the game or to get things going if the other team tries to do everything to take that pace out of the game,” Slot told Sky Sports in an interview.
After winning the Premier League last year, Liverpool sit sixth, 14 points behind leaders Arsenal this season. According to Sky Sports, Liverpool have scored six goals this season through non-penalty set pieces and have conceded 14 such goals, the second highest in the league. When asked about this, Slot explained that Liverpool’s strategy is not built around big, tall players suited for set-pieces, and noted how the increasing emphasis on set-piece goals in the league has changed the dynamic.
“For sure, things have changed. Things have changed massively. I didn’t expect the league to be as it is this season, because I was here last season and for me that was completely different. Maybe once, twice, three times we saw similar things as we are seeing this season, but this season it has been a massive, massive, massive change. Look at the one that’s on top of the Premier League (Arsenal). It’s fair for me to say that they are by far the best set-piece team in the league. If one team has success—and Arsenal already has had success for a few years in terms of set-pieces—others try to copy that. We are trying to do much better than we are doing at the moment as well, but maybe we went the other side. If you look at our players, we didn’t buy the biggest and the tallest ones that are a big, big, big threat in set-pieces,” said Slot.
Earlier this week, the Dutch manager had spoken about his belief that winning means playing the ‘nicest football to watch’. Slot shared how this remains his long-term goal at the club.
“As a manager, you can win the league, Champions League, the FA Cup or the League Cup but the biggest thing you can win is that you can play the nicest football to watch. Although, at this moment in time, fans might argue a little bit. It is absolutely something that I am aiming for. I always want to have the ball, I want it to be intense and want the fans to like what they see. Not all of our fans see it as a joy to watch and the hardest thing is I even understand, I agree with them. Trophies is one thing but being a team, club or a manager that stands for good football, is in the long-term worth more,” Slot had said on The Reds Roundtable podcast.
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