The Dutch coach has downplayed the significance of the fixture in terms of judgement from pundits and fans
Arne Slot believes a positive result against Manchester United will not change perceptions of his Liverpool side.
Slot’s Reds travel to Old Trafford on Sunday having won three consecutive league matches, a run that has moved them within reach of third place in the Premier League. Victory would strengthen their push for Champions League qualification and could even secure it, depending on other results.
However, Liverpool’s manager downplayed the significance of the fixture in terms of judgement from pundits and fans. “Every week we need to prove ourselves, not only for the players, for me as well,” Slot said.
“That is not only when we play United, it’s also when we play Fulham or Palace. That is the way our lives are. We have to prove ourselves every three days and people judge us every three days. That is completely fair, we know this when we go into the job.
“I think it is for you guys to judge if I have been too harshly judged by many people. That’s not up to me.
“I judge my players, if they play well, if they are working hard and executing tactics. I’m not in this job to judge whether I’m criticised too harshly, that’s not the way I spend my time on a daily basis.”
Liverpool have improved significantly after their struggles this season, but despite the upturn in results Slot acknowledged performances have not yet reached the level he expects.
“I wouldn’t say a step forward, but it’s the right step to make,” Slot said of qualifying for Europe’s elite competition. “We know how important it is to qualify for the Champions League, for any club but definitely for our club. It’s an important step, it’s definitely not a step backwards.
“I think we can be on a much higher level than we are now. If you simply look at the results then we can be very positive, it’s three wins out of three [league] games, but performance-wise I don’t think it has been our three best performances of this season.
“We’ve shown already that we can play much better, but in many of these games we were very unlucky with the outcome of the game.
“In the last three games, I wouldn’t say we did not deserve to win, but we were more lucky than we’ve ever been this season.
“So this team is capable of much more, but it would be helpful if everyone is available once in a while as well and that hasn’t been the situation throughout the whole season and that’s very extreme at the moment, the amount of players we are missing.”
