Arne Slot looked very frustrated as Liverpool dropped points at home to Leeds to kick off 2026.
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The 0-0 draw was sluggish from Liverpool, especially in attack, as they struggled to create chances throughout.
Here is the latest Arne Slot reaction from Anfield.
Arne Slot reaction
On it not being the best start to 2026: “No. You would like to start off with a win. But it was difficult. I don’t think we were able to play many times through their low block. But a few times we did. Some times we didn’t have enough bodies in front of the goal and in other moments where we did create or we were close to a goal we were a bit unfortunate. In the end I thought it would have been the same as many times this season when we did concede a goal and lose it 1-0 but that was offside. So that is why it ended up 0-0.”
On what needs to happen to break through a low block like Leeds had: “I think everyone knows. If you look at football and especially in the Premier League you see two ways of unlocking it. It is hardly ever an attack over 15-20 passes. It is a lot of times an individual action which we saw today a few times with Jeremie Frimpong doing, you need pace, you need to dominate your one-v-one on the sides. Or as we see a lot in the Premier League a set-piece can unlock a low block. We were close with one set-piece with Virgil and a few times close with Jeremy with mainly pace and one-v-one action. But not enough to hurt them enough and score a goal.”
On a possible penalty in the first half as Ekitike stayed on his feet in the box: “I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that one of my players stays on his feet in a situation like this. I think it was West Ham away when Paqueta tried to get a second yellow card and one of my players tried to get him out of that situation because that is mainly who we’ve been this season. Of course one or two times you can find a moment when you can say ‘oh they went to the floor when there wasn’t a foul’ but it is just a team who we are. Unfortunately this is not recognized a lot. Because in the second half I saw players of theirs going down in their own box so many times. And every time the referee rewarded them with a free kick. The big question is: should we change? Yes or no?”
On if they should change: “I don’t think we should change because this is who we are. But I’m hoping other people change and see what we do and what other teams do as well. Okay, it has nothing to do with the end result today. Let’s be completely clear. Although if he goes down it is probably a red card and a penalty, I’m not sure if that is true, but it would definitely be a penalty. That would have increased our chances of winning a game against a team that came here to defend a lot. We stayed on our feet, as we’ve done many times.”
On if he will keep rotating the lineup with another game coming up on Sunday: “Not too sure if we do this the next game because if you look at our bench you see there were four players 19 years or younger on the bench. Or players that have hardly had any playing time in the Premier League, all four of them. We have to wait and see how they come out of the game. Florian Wirtz for example only trained once this week because he felt his hamstring at the start of the week. That is why I didn’t want to take the risk of playing him too long with all the games coming up and we have to manage. We have to accept the situation and where we are.”
