"It does go against my beliefs" - Liverpool boss Arne Slot provides honest response when asked if he'd change approach amid recent poor form

Liverpool boss Arne Slot has remained defiant on not changing his playing style, insisting that it goes against his beliefs amid the Reds' poor run of form.

After a bright start to the season in which they won their first seven matches, Liverpool have endured an unwanted streak. They have lost six of their last seven matches, and their disappointing run reached a crescendo following a humiliating 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace on Wednesday that saw them crash out of the Carabao Cup.

Speaking ahead of the Premier League clash with Aston Villa at Anfield, Slot was asked if he would consider changing his approach to take a more defensive outlook.

“It does go against my beliefs,” he responded. “But I've won games in the past [like this]. We were talking about [Manchester] City away, that maybe went against my beliefs [last season], but it was necessary to play it like that over there in the second half. So, I would be more than open to adapt in certain situations, but I don't think the story is—at least in my opinion—that we concede chance after chance after chance, or that we are too open. It is absolutely not like this.

While Liverpool have conceded 14 goals from their last seven games, Slot stated that their defensive record isn’t as bad as results suggest. He continued:

“Every single game, maybe apart from Palace because in the first half we could have been two or three-nil down and maybe the Brentford game, in all the other games we deserved much more than we got. We hardly conceded a chance, even this week with the team I put out, which played together for the first time – I think they only conceded three big chances, unfortunately all three went in. That's because they weren't chances, they were big chances. I don't see us conceding a lot of chances, so I don't see a reason to change our playing style completely, but we need to do better in not conceding goals, that is for sure.”

Should Liverpool lose against Aston Villa on Saturday, November 1, it would be the first time they have suffered five consecutive league defeats since the 1953/54 season.

Arne Slot wants Liverpool to defend set-pieces better

Rather than changing his football philosophy, Slot claimed his Liverpool side have struggled to defend set-pieces, referencing their games against Manchester United and Brentford. He expressed his frustration and said it is far from their standards.

He told reporters:

“It gets more and more important in every Premier League game, let alone in games of ours. It's never helpful if you end a game of football against [Manchester] United with conceding a set-piece and you start another one [at Brentford] in the Premier League and you concede after five minutes from a throw-in, from a set-piece. I'm not 100 per cent sure if I'm correct, we had to defend 16 set-pieces and 15 we defended well. But we are in this moment of time where 15 isn't enough because we conceded 16. “The first one, someone said to me – who worked in a completely different department – that no plan survives the first contact and that is also a little bit what makes it difficult if you are five minutes in the game and you are 1-0 down – that's never helpful for confidence for the plan you are having. If I liked a little part of the game, it was the part after we conceded the 1-0, because at that moment of time we were creative, we created our chances but we couldn't score. And then in the last 10 minutes it became more of their game again and eventually the way we conceded the 2-0, that is something that is far from our standards,” he added.

Heading into tomorrow’s clash, Liverpool sit seventh in the Premier League table with 15 points in nine matches.

Edited by Ezekiel Olamide