Arne Slot held a team meeting on Monday as Liverpool prepare to return to action for the Premier League title run-in
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Arne Slot, head coach of Liverpool during a training session at AXA Training Centre
Arne Slot, head coach of Liverpool during a training session at AXA Training Centre
(Image: 2025 Liverpool FC)
Arne Slot has revealed he held a team meeting with his players on Monday as Liverpool look to bounce back from double disappointment against Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle United. The Reds host Everton in the Merseyside derby on Wednesday as they return to action for the first time in two and a half weeks.
It has been a long international break for Slot’s side, having suffered a premature Champions League exit in the round-of-16 to PSG before putting in a poor performance as they lost in the Carabao Cup final to Newcastle.
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The majority of Slot’s squad departed for international duty after their Wembley defeat, before reporting back to the AXA Training Centre last Saturday.
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Liverpool remain 12 points clear at the top of the table with nine games left to play as Slot looks to lead his side to Premier League glory.
And he has revealed he made it clear to his players that they cannot be outworked like they were against Newcastle during the title run-in.
“I don’t think there was a need for that (a meeting after the final) but if there was a need for it, it was simply impossible because the players were able to leave after the game,” he said. “So I did speak to them, what I always do after the game.
“But that’s not a big meeting, that is a few words. Already looking back to losing against Paris Saint-Germain after losing against Newcastle, after extending our lead in the league, and looking forward for them playing for their national teams.
“There was definitely a message to the players (since reporting back for training) and they came in Saturday and we had the meeting you are talking about yesterday.
“The message is as simple as it has always been - just don’t accept you are outworked by a team, which we were, against Newcastle.
“If the stakes are so high, that is almost unacceptable, almost. It can happen in a season once or twice but it shouldn’t happen many times.
“(I can) show them the work rate they have put in for so many games in a row (to stop it happening again). Paris Saint-Germain was a great example of that.
“It is emphasising on what made us where we are now. For me, that is, apart from quality, an incredible work-rate every single game we played in the Premier League.”
Having seen his side held to a 2-2 draw by Everton at Goodison Park in February, Slot also admitted his side will need to be better with the ball against their Merseyside rivals.
“If I tell you what I noticed (from Goodison derbies) that would not be smart for me to do and that is not to make Everton wiser but then maybe I should keep it like this,” he said. “I don’t want to go into it before the game because last time it didn’t help at all, what I said.
“We have to be better with the ball than we were at Everton and that is the only thing we can control. Without the ball I think we did quite well.
“It is always difficult when you play against a team like Everton or Newcastle, they bring a lot of balls into your last line. But, in general, I think we have handled that quite well, even Everton away.
“But we can play better when we have the ball, and we have to play better when we have the ball in our home game and that is something we are focusing on.
“But we need to at least the same defensively because I don’t think we gave away a lot of chances. We hardly created a chance as well, so that last thing we have to do better.”
Meanwhile, Slot also revealed that defeat to PSG was more of a disappointment than losing in the League Cup final to Newcastle, admitting Liverpool did not deserve more from their defeat at Wembley.
“For me, the Paris Saint-Germain game was harder to take than the Newcastle one,” he said. “For 90 minutes in the Newcastle game, I already felt.... I only felt we had a chance to get a result after Federico (Chiesa) scored. And that was only five or six minutes of extra-time, but we did not play extra-time.
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“The Paris Saint-Germain game took me longer to get over because we were so, so, so close to getting to the quarter-finals.
“In the Newcastle game, it just felt almost for the whole game… at the end of the game you were almost coming close to accepting it. The whole game you felt it was coming.
“Against Paris Saint-Germain, you didn’t feel it coming. I felt in the second half that our goal was coming. So that was a bigger disappointment for me than losing the final against Newcastle.”