In Arne Slot‘s first season, Liverpool are about to celebrate their 20th league title, but the manager is already looking at how his team can improve.
“We have to become even better than we are now – and we can.”
That’s a signal of intent from Slot if ever you heard one. Key to Liverpool’s success this season has been the high standards carried over from the Jurgen Klopp era, and there are no signs of them fading.
Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah haven’t stayed to see their careers out quietly. They’re here to win and so is Slot.
Speaking to media, including the Liverpool Echo, the head coach said: “I have always said that as a manager everywhere around the world, everyone wants to achieve perfection.
“That will probably never work out, but even in the last few weeks we are still trying to get better in certain things and keeping the standards as high as we had them for the whole season.
“We are so close maybe in some parts of the season or in some games (to perfection) but in other moments we have to do much better.”
The fact that Slot feels there is still plenty of improvement to be made to a title-winning team should signal to the rest of the Premier League that his first-year success is no flash in the pan.
Liverpool have blown away the competition domestically over the last eight months, but Slot insisted Liverpool “have to become even better.”
The Dutchman was asked how close this Liverpool side are to his vision, to which he replied: “Parts of the season we were maybe quite close to that or phases in a game.
“But, in general, every manager that works at a top club wants to have control of a game, every single minute of the game, but that is hardly possible in this league.
“There were phases also during the season or during games where we didn’t have that control, so I think we can do and we have to become even better than we are now – and we can.
“That is definitely my opinion but I also know out of experience that you cannot play 38 games at this level, so it will always be a bit like this.
“The positive thing from us this season is that we never went down a lot, even if we didn’t have the control I would like to.
“We were still difficult to score against but (we could have) a bit more ball possession and a bit more threaten the opponent even more in ball possession.”
While we expect there to be several changes in the playing department, it will still be important for Slot to ensure he doesn’t rock the boat too much this summer.
Subtle tweaks were the name of the game this season and we shouldn’t expect Slot to stray too far from that approach.
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