Arne Slot has insisted he can get tough with his Liverpool players in the sanctuary of the dressing room in contrast to his calm and controlled demeanour on the touchline.
Liverpool witnessed another side to their new head coach during his Premier League bow at Ipswich last weekend when he criticised their first-half display at Portman Road. Slot said he was harder on the entire team than he had been with Jarell Quansah, the young defender who was substituted at half-time due to his inability to fully get to grips with Ipswich’s imposing centre-forward Liam Delap. “Maybe language was a problem. I said he did not lose every duel but one or two important duels,” Slot clarified on Friday. Nevertheless, the Dutchman showed in word and deed at Ipswich that he can be ruthless.
“I don’t think it was ‘hard, hard’ but I raised my voice a bit,” said Slot of his half-time rebuke to his players. “I’m not losing it in terms of throwing things through a dressing room but I can be hard and tough on them if I think it’s necessary but I don’t think that works every week. You always look at your team and think ‘What do they need?’ And if you feel they need a bit of this [punches his palm] you are a bit harder on them, sometimes really hard on them, but never in a way that you are losing your mind.
“I’ve been a player myself and they would make fun of you afterwards, at least that’s what I did with the managers who lost their mind in my playing career. You always have to be in control.”
Liverpool’s head coach denied his treatment of Quansah was harsh – Slot explained his reasons to the defender immediately after the game and at training on Sunday – or that it could be interpreted as a message to the rest of the team. “If that would be the only way to get some credit from them that would not be a good idea,” he added.
“I didn’t take Jarell off for that reason. I think you earn your respect by what you tell them in video meetings and what you tell them on the training ground. I think I was harder on the whole team at half-time than I was on Jarell by bringing him out. I think you have to earn your respect by what you tell them. Sometimes your actions help but that was not the idea behind bringing Jarell off. Absolutely not.”
Slot will preside over his first Premier League home game on Sunday against Brentford. His rapport with the Kop, the 45-year-old believes, rests entirely on the success and style of his team. “My way of doing things is to let the team play in the best possible way,” he said. “In that way the fans will hopefully admire it and I will get a bond with them. But don’t expect me to go after the game and make fist-pumps. That is not going to be my style. It is more, let the team play in a certain way and they like the team and because of that they will like the manager as well.
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“The only thing I can do is help the team before and during the game and then afterwards the boys have done so much work that they will be there to thank the fans. I might be there but I will never be in front of them, always behind them.”