Arne Slot refused to directly address transfer links between Liverpool and Jeremie Frimpong but he did say the club is always looking at “interesting players” who can strengthen the squad.
It was reported earlier this week that Liverpool is expected to pay Frimpong’s release clause at Bayer Leverkusen, which is understood to stand at around $39 million.
Staying typically coy on the topic, Slot said: “We already have Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez, so it’s not like when Trent is leaving I have no clue what to do anymore, but as a club, we are always looking at interesting players that can strengthen our squad. That’s the general answer, I’m not talking about individuals.”
See the full transcript from the press conference below…
Jeremie Frimpong — is he the type of player you would see as a possible Alexander-Arnold replacement?
“It’s going to be a boring answer. For the whole season it was about contract extensions. And now we are arriving in a time where everybody wants to know which players we’re going to bring in. We don’t talk about the players we want to bring in, in public, until the moment they’ve signed for us. We already have Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez, so it’s not like when Trent is leaving I have no clue what to do anymore, but as a club, we are always looking at interesting players that can strengthen our squad. That’s the general answer, I’m not talking about individuals.”
Does Alexander-Arnold figure in your plans for the final two games?
“I wasn’t here over the last few days and neither was Trent, so I haven’t spoken to him yet. Today was the first time I’ve spoken to him. It’s quite difficult for a team that has already won the league to train so many days in a row. You need to find the balance between days off and preparation. We train today, tomorrow and Sunday to be well prepared for Brighton. These players never had a few days off during the season because all of the competitions we were in. Where other teams maybe had a few days off during the season, we hardly ever had that… that’s not an answer to your question but I wanted to make it clear. If Trent is involved? It’s the first day we’ve trained since the days off so it’s quite early for me to see what the squad will look like on Monday.”
Is it hard to motivate players having already won the league?
“The honest answer is yes. It’s clear to everyone if you were still competing for the Premier League, there would have been a few days off as well but we would have gone somewhere else. I don’t think we’re the only team that gives players a few extra days off when you play on Sunday and then don’t play again until the following Monday. The honest answer is there is a difference but if I look at the way we played against Arsenal, I saw a team that wanted to compete against Arsenal from the first second until the last, even when we were having some problems in the second half, they were able to come back into the game so it shows you the mentality is very good. But it was a home game, and what is the main thing for us is, it doesn’t matter if you’ve won the league, if you play Chelsea, Arsenal and Brighton, these are difficult games to play. That’s why I was also so happy that we were already enough points clear to clinch the title against Tottenham.”
Excellent away record this season…
“It means a lot to me. I didn’t know the exact numbers but I think one of the first games we played away, I mentioned this to the players and showed them their away form and this we had to improve. It was one of the things we ahd to improve, not the only thing, if we wanted to be there in the end competing for the league. That’s what we did really well throughout the whole season. The away form has been good. but our home form has been quite good as well and that’s the only way in a difficult league like this to challenge. So many teams are able to win many games in a row, so you need to have good home and away form.”
Does the players’ trip to Dubai this week help to bring them together?
“That’s the nice part of your jobs. If we win it, you will tell me this, if we lose it, we will get the blame for having a few days off. For me, Chelsea is one of the most difficult away games in the season, Brighton away — you know what Arsenal and City did there. If we don’t get a result there, that has nothing to do with players enjoying a few days off, but that will probably be the story in the media. If we win it, it will show as a positive thing. As a journalist you can look at it from both ways. We felt that this was a good way of preparing ourselves for the game on Monday because the boys deserved a few days off. It’s been a very long week off. We think three days is more than enough time to be physically well prepared, and if we are mentally prepared for a very difficult game against a team that can play really well, that has nothing to do with if we had some time off, but that does maybe have something to with the fact that, apart from winning a game of football, there’s nothing else at stake.”
Fringe players to get minutes in last two games to make mind up for next season?
“I don’t think it would be fair to any player if you worked with them all season to change your opinion in the games that are coming up. My opinion has been made up in 10 or 11 months, so we know quite well the quality of our players, so the game against Brighton or the game against Palace is not to make up our mind or change our mind on what we think about next season.”
Difficult conversations with players who could be sold?
“First of all you assume that we are going to bring in new players, and I’ve said many times that we are happy with the players we’ve got. It’s part of our decision. Some of our players who haven’t played a lot are not looking forward to a similar season next year, so there is an ongoing process, and we have to make sure we are prepared if we can strengthen the squad. This club has always done that, if we feel we can strengthen the squad, we will do so, but it’s difficult so strengthen the squad. There’s a reason why we won the league, we’ve got so many great players, so it’s an ongoing process. This club has shown so many times in the past that they will make the right decisions, and we made the right decision last season to not bring in any players at all, except for Federico Chiesa, and that worked out quite well. You can also look at it in a more negative way if you want, because we were knocked out in the last 16 of the Champions League.”
Does Chiesa deserve more time next season?
“In terms of the quality he has, he would deserve more playing time at this club or whichever club he’s playing for. He has the quality to play for us, but unfortunately for us he’s in competition with Salah, Gakpo and Diaz, and I don’t think I’m wrong if I tell you that all three of them have had a great season. For him, starting one or two or maybe even three nil down, he wasn’t as fit as any of the other players. That didn’t help in the beginning, and before he was as fit as the rest, the other ones did so well and there was not a lot of reasons for me to change. It’s difficult, because Nunez and Jota are there as well. Is he good enough? Yes he is. But apparently I’ve always felt that Salah, Diaz and Gakpo deserve the confidence I have in them, and I hardly ever changed that set-up between them.”
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Importance of players being able to celebrate the league win?
“The last game is really special. Normally in this league it’s also about the last game. If you wanted then to go after the season, then wives, girlfriends and children are like ‘come on, I haven’t seen my dad for such a long time, let’s go on holiday with the family’. Which I completely agree with. So not only were we in a position to win it, we won it early and then had a game on a Sunday before a game the following Monday, so the players could celebrate together then. At the end of the season, you have to find the right balance between keeping them fit enough to play, but also get them mentally fresh. We tried to do that last week before the Arsenal game, and this week also.”
Does Alexander-Arnold situation risk overshadowing the end of the season?
“Last week, people talked about it to me, then we had the reaction of the fans inside the stadium, then all the pundits talked about it, all the country talked about it, and now it’s time to draw a line under it. Let’s focus on the fact we won the league, and let’s enjoy the upcoming week and not talk about the Trent situation.”
How much focus is on the remaining game as opposed to summer transfers?
“You saw me this week, on social media?! Even if you are celebrating over there, that doesn’t mean that the whole day you don’t think about something else, but a larger part now is indeed into next season. It’s a normal situation that my thoughts, if I’m on the couch tonight, are more into next season than they would have been if it was still very important, and that’s also the challenge not only for me, but also the players for the Monday game, because their thoughts might already be on playing for the national team, two weeks later, because those games are maybe even more important than the upcoming two weeks. Although people tell me the Palace game will be a very special one to look forward to. You think about next season more than you would’ve had when it was even more important to win a game of football than it is now.”
Curtis Jones played a bit deeper vs. Arsenal, is that an experiment for next season?
“I think Mac Allister did this a few times as well, but it also depends on the way the other team presses, and the good thing if you play a team like Arsenal, is you know what you can expect. They have the quality, and it’s perfectly done by them, but you know what to expect. Sometimes you give different details to the midfielders, how to do the build-up than you might do in other games. I wouldn’t read too much into that. It’s just a small detail. The general idea of playing is the same but we always try to adapt to the way that the other team wants to press us.”
