Arne Slot admits the "massive change" in style of play in the Premier League this season caught him by surprise - but believes his "technically gifted" squad are adjusting and that will ultimately give Liverpool an edge over their rivals. Â
The Liverpool head coach made headlines earlier this week when he said
Speaking to Your Site ahead of Sunday's clash with Man City, he stood by those comments, saying "If you don't play good football, it's [almost] impossible to win something or to achieve something sustainable".
However, he also noted that the increased physical approach from opposition teams is sometimes hindering Liverpool in the pursuit of the football they want to deploy.
"We never do time-wasting. We always want to press high. We always want to bring the ball out from the back," he explained about the Liverpool ethos. "But unfortunately, we face teams that have a different approach, which is completely fair for them.
"Every team should play their style, which is best equipped for playing against us, and it's shown that we are sometimes struggling with that style.
"It's not always possible for a team to get pace in the game or to get things going if the other team tries to do everything to get that pace out of the game.
"When we play more open games this season, we've shown that we always want to be part of a game like that, and we've done really well. But games where we've dropped points had a different look and feel, but that's not what we wanted it to be, but what was forced to us.
"Now, the next step is making sure that if that playing style is forced on us, we are that good that we can change that towards the game we want.
"That's something new in the Premier League. Not only in our games, this is something that you see a lot. This is what we have to accept and find the right answer to."
Asked about that style shift in England's top flight, Slot conceded his side have suffered at times, particularly from set-pieces, and suggested Liverpool's squad-building has left them needing to adapt to the new demands of the league.
But he is confident that could play in their favour eventually.
"For sure, things have changed. Things have changed massively," he said.
"I didn't expect the league to be as it is this season, because I was here last season and for me that was completely different.
"Maybe once, twice, three times we saw similar things as we are seeing this season, but this season it has been a massive, massive, massive change.
"Look at the one that's on top of the Premier League [Arsenal]. It's fair for me to say that they are by far the best set-piece team in the league. If one team has success - and Arsenal already has the success for a few years in terms of set-pieces - [the other teams] try to copy that.
"We are trying to do much better than we are doing at the moment as well, but maybe we went the other side.
"If you look at our players, we didn't buy the biggest and the tallest ones that are a big, big, big threat in set-pieces.
"Many of our players are already technically gifted and are adjusting more and more to that physical style, which the Premier League has become even more and more.
"So that's the positive thing, because if technically gifted players can adjust also to that physical style, which we've seen so many times this season, then you might have an advantage over the rest."
