Liverpool coach Slot attended the pre-match press conference against Everton and talked about topics such as the team's perfect start, rotation policy and lineup depth.
The team has won all five games at the beginning. Do you think the team's progress has exceeded the plan?
No. It depends on when you ask me. If you asked me in May, I might expect us to be where we are, but then we didn’t know what would happen to Diogo (Jota) and I thought McAllister would be involved from day one of the preseason, but things got worse.
I think the most important thing at the beginning of the season is to score points, and I think we are doing better in this regard than people generally talk about. Because I don't think people are considering how difficult it is to beat Newcastle away after going through so many things. I don't think they lost the goal before, they just gave it to us. Burnley only conceded 14 goals last season, and I can continue to talk.
So, if you take all these factors into consideration, including everything that happens, the changes we have to make, and not all players are ready to play for the full 90 minutes (this is a situation that many clubs face), then we definitely exceeded my expectations in points.
You have had a lot of rotations on two fullback positions this season, why?
The reason why we make so many changes in this position is completely related to the physical condition of the player. Flynnon was absent for three to four weeks. Even if he just ran two yards away, he seemed to be sprinting because he was too fast. We have to be very cautious with him, which is why I let him play for 60 minutes before replacing him. Bradley had an injury history last season. There are three games in seven days and I think we have to manage this well, too.
How do you evaluate the current lineup depth? Is this the main reason for the rotation?
I think this season, I have also said before, looking at our team's lineup, we are stronger than last season. We also need to prove whether the starting eleven players are stronger, and we need to wait and see. But the lineup is deeper, which is also the goal we worked hard to achieve last season.
Therefore, we will also make more use of the entire lineup. Because it's not just that if I let Flynnon kick 90 minutes and then let him kick 90 minutes tomorrow, the risk of his injury would be very high. Take Milos (Korquez) and Robertson as an example. If I let Milos play every time and Milos gets injured and suddenly Robertson has to play six or seven games in a row, he is not prepared for it.
So I need, in this example, to give him playing time too. He played two games for the national team, so once something happened, he was ready. The good news is that everyone's level is very close, so I can make a choice like this.
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