Slot on fitness issues, criticism and mentality
Liverpool boss Arne Slot has been speaking to the media before Saturday's Premier League game against Chelsea at Anfield (kick-off 12:30 BST). Here are the key lines from his news conference: On team news, Slot said Alexander Isak was back in training yesterday and they will see how much he can do today to "see how much we can use him tomorrow". He added that Alisson and Mohamed Salah haven't trained yet but are "close" to returning and Giorgi Mamardashvili will train today and they will "see how he is going to react".
On the latest on Florian Wirtz and Ibrahima Konate, Slot said: "Ibou had a personal reason not to be there [training on Wednesday] but was yesterday and today again and Florian was a bit unwell but he trained with us yesterday also. " On their current form and performances, the Dutch boss said: "Usually this goes hand in hand, if you have good performance, it usually leads to results. That's why performances are very crucial and important.
It is not always like that in football, sometimes you can have a poor performance and still win. Over the long term, it helps if your performance is good. " Did you know?
Liverpool have lost 11 Premier League matches this season, their most since the 2014-15 campaign under Brendan Rodgers, when they lost 12. Slot added: "The first and main aim is to qualify for the Champions League and we have shown this season we need a good performance to get results. The opposite has been true a lot of times, where we've had a good performance, but the result wasn't there.
And we've not had many times a poor performance and still had a result. We need to have a good performance to win a game. " Did you know?