Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has revealed how prepared he feels the club is to defend their Premier League title.
The champions start the defence of their crown on Friday evening against Bournemouth at Anfield. The Reds emphatically won the title last season, finishing ten points ahead of nearest challengers Arsenal and secured the trophy with a month to spare. However, it’s been a turbulent pre-season for Slot and the club.
Before even kicking a ball, the tragic passing of Diogo Jota sent shockwaves through the club and the football world. The Portuguese forward died alongside his brother following a car crash in Spain on July 3. But, amongst an outpouring of emotion and tributes, Arne Slot led his players on to the pitch just ten days later in their first pre-season friendly against Preston North End.
The squad then embarked on a pre-season tour of Asia, where cracks within the defensive unit started to show, and a 4-2 loss to AC Milan only highlighted Slot’s biggest challenge this season. The departure of Jarell Quansah to Bayer Leverkusen and an injury to Joe Gomez has left Liverpool with just two recognised senior centre-backs — captain Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté.
Despite two victories against Athletic Club, similar problems arose, and were fully exposed against in the penalty defeat in the Community Shield against Crystal Palace on Sunday.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the match against Bournemouth, Slot gave an honest and frank assessment of how prepared the team are.
“[We’re] as ready as we can be. I emphasised last week on the fact that we’ve lost three or four starters, and unfortunately Ryan Gravenberch wasn’t able to play last week and is not able to play this week. So, that means if you exclude the goalkeeper from the ten outfield positions, [there are] five who are different than the main starters we had last season.
Then if you look at the quality on the ball, I’m very happy with that. Without the ball, it’s eight out of ten times also very good, but the aim of this club isn’t eight out of ten times, it’s ten out of ten times, and that is the fine-tuning we still need to find defensively.”
The acknowledgment that there’s room for improvement will come as no surprise, with the Dutch coach having fielded questions about the defensive fragility throughout the summer. Whilst the club has strengthened in other areas, spending over £300 million on new talent, the middle of defence has been a glaring omission.
The reports that the club are closing in on 18-year-old Giovanni Leoni will come as welcome news to Reds’ fans, but the Italian U19 international is seen as a long-term successor to van Dijk rather than an immediate starter. However, the persistent noise around a move for Crystal Palace’s Marc Guéhi could be the solution Slot is looking for.
When pressed about signing both players, Slot could only share what information he had.
“The club have agreed a deal [for Leoni], but he hasn’t signed for us yet. The moment he signs for us I can go into more detail.
And the other one [Guéhi] is of course the answer you always get from me. He’s not our player and unfortunately he was the captain of the team we lost agsinst last Sunday. If you want to have any talks about him you should go to Palace, to Glasner, and ask him.”
For now, Slot is working with what he has, but with one centre-back coming in and another being discussed, it’s clear Liverpool are still active in the transfer market and the head coach’s words suggest he feels the club aren’t quite where they need to be in order to retain the Premier League title.
