Arne Slot tells Jamie Carragher he's wrong about his Liverpool side - 'Weren't informed well'
Arne Slot has insisted his style of play is "quite similar" to his predecessor Jurgen Klopp's, with the Liverpool boss taking issue with comments made by Jamie Carragher
by Matthew Cooper · The MirrorLiverpool boss Arne Slot believes Jamie Carragher was not "informed well enough" about his style of play, explaining that one of the main reasons he was appointed was due to similarities with former manager Jurgen Klopp.
After Liverpool's dramatic comeback win over Brighton on Saturday, Carragher claimed that the team was taken "on a ride" by the Anfield crowd and that Slot did not want to see his side playing the same "end-to-end football" that they did under Klopp.
"It doesn't matter what style or system you play, Anfield takes you on a ride and sweeps your feet away, and you cannot control that as a manager," Carragher said on Sky Sports. "This is not what Arne Slot wants, this is Jurgen Klopp.
"We were told it was going to be more controlled. Liverpool win it back, again everyone is flying forward – look at the bodies. This is end-to-end, this is the Anfield factor. Again, lost the ball and six players up the other end of the pitch.
"Counter-attack and, again, Arne Slot doesn't want to see this end-to-end football. There was no thought [from Liverpool] of if we can be a bit more controlled. No, let's go to the other end and let's go quickly."
However, when Carragher asked Slot about the impact of the Anfield atmosphere on the Brighton match, the Dutchman disagreed with his comments and insisted his style of play is "quite similar" to Klopp's.
Speaking to CBS Sports after Liverpool's 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen, he said "Most of the time in your career you have been right, in this situation maybe you weren't informed well enough... I like the high press just as much as Jurgen liked it. I think that's also one of the reasons why Liverpool came to me, that our playing style was quite similar.
"What I do agree with you about Jamie is maybe with the ball... risk vs reward, sometimes wait a bit longer to play the ball in behind. But what we always want from our players is that we press them really high and that's what we did in the moments you showed."
Slot has enjoyed an excellent start to life at Liverpool, with the Reds now top of both the Premier League and the Champions League. Reflecting on the win over Leverkusen, Slot told Amazon Prime: "I don't know if it was that much to do with intensity but we took more risk.
"They overloaded the midfield a lot and we adjusted a half-time and took the risk to play one v one all over. We had better chances in the first half and they weren't a goal threat.As much as this time, how good they are in Europe, sometimes a strong target man is better than someone a bit faster.
"Curtis Jones did an incredible pass and then you have someone with the pace of Lucho [Luis Diaz] to finish it off. The pass was as good as the goal in my opinion. You don't look ahead as a manager at the next three months. You're always one game at a time. We've got Aston Villa on Saturday, another tough game."
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