Arne Slot has watched Liverpool's Merseyside derby defeat last season
Arne Slot has watched Liverpool's Merseyside derby defeat last season
Arne Slot watched last season’s Merseyside derby at Goodison Park for tactical analysis - but he will also have got a feel for the occasion.
If he needed anymore his first-team coach John Heitinga knows a fair bit about them as he played for Everton for five years. The Liverpool boss hasn’t been walking around the club’s training base asking all about facing Everton and what it means to the locals. But he couldn’t avoid it ahead of Goodison Park’s final Merseyside derby.
“It is not like we have a conversation like ‘Now tell me everything you know about that game’ but if you are sitting down together he talks how he felt about that game,” said Slot, about Heitinga.
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“Like some others who are in this building, everybody is of course talking at the moment about the special game that is coming up but that only happens after the Newcastle game.
“In the last half year I knew this was a big game. I’m mainly focused on what we have to expect and what we have to do.
“If you sit down for a while and don’t think about tactics, people do talk about to you about the importance of this game.”
Slot brought Heitinga onto his coaching staff this summer
Slot brought Heitinga onto his coaching staff this summer
Liverpool are looking to avoid dropping points again this week after a 3-3 draw with Newcastle on Wednesday. They suffered a shock defeat to Sean Dyche’s side at Goodison Park last season which dented their title challenge.
This time they will be hoping to maintain a seven-point lead at the top of the table. So Slot has looked back on last season’s game to see where Liverpool went wrong.
But he dismissed suggestions that Dyche’s outfit are focussed on long balls and an old-school approach.
He said: “I don’t completely agree because I see them bringing the ball out from the back many times as well. It depends on what the opponent does. If they are fine to play, they play.
“What they do do and that is a bit similar to Brentford, for example, is if they have a free-kick or a throw-in somewhere around the goal, and around is quite a big area, they tend to bring it in.
“But that is not something new. You also see this at Arsenal. One of their strengths is their set pieces and they use it a lot.
“I think Sean Dyche has certain things that other managers also have in the league. I don’t think that he is on his own for a certain style of play. That is not how I saw it when I watched the game back.
Sean Dyche and Everton got the better of Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool last season
“The way to play against them is in an ideal world to press them so well that we have the ball a lot.
“And if we have the ball then we have to try and play our own game which we were able to do in the second half against Newcastle and only in parts of the first half and that is what we should do better.”
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