A new era at Liverpool is now well and truly underway after Arne Slot gave his first address.
Fans have been waiting for a full month to hear from Slot after he succeeded Jurgen Klopp in the dugout.
But with the new head coach waiting for Klopp’s farewell to die down, he has picked now as his moment to speak out.
Of course, Slot did not just rocked up at the AXA Training Centre and begin work on Wednesday, though. The Dutchman has known he’s taking charge at Liverpool for around six weeks.
In the meantime, Slot has now confirmed that he has been watching a lot of videos of his new group of players.
Arne Slot admits to watching Liverpool sessions
There are not too many changes expected to be made to the Liverpool squad this summer.
A couple of additions look likely and perhaps one or two may depart. But by and large the bulk of the squad will remain intact.
As a result, it sounds like a wise idea for Slot to watch some of the group’s training sessions. And speaking to Liverpoolfc.com, that’s exactly what he says has happened.
“I’ve seen many games already, I’ve seen many training sessions as well,” says the former Feyenoord boss.
“Of course the fans can see the games, so they know we have some very good players. But I’ve also seen a lot of training sessions already and I think this is where you bring the culture, and they are always working hard – like the fans see during the game,” adds Slot.
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“There are two things [why] to do this. Of course to get to know more about the players because mostly you see them during the games. And you want to know also what the culture is, how they train and what they are used to.
“I think it’s always interesting if you are the successor of Jurgen Klopp and also Pepijn Lijnders, who does quite a bit of work on the training pitch, to see what their ideas were on the training pitch. I said this, we all try to steal a bit from each other – mostly this is done by looking at the games but if you can see the way they train, that can only help you.
“Let one thing be clear: the players are not going to get all the same exercises again – we will implement our own things. But it’s interesting to see what they did also during the week.”
When will Liverpool players be back in training?
It won’t be long now until the first Liverpool players make their return to work after the summer break.
Although 14 members of the senior squad are currently away playing international football, there is still a number who are not.
Those who come back early doors are perhaps at an advantage, with Slot confirming that he will ask that group to help the latecomers get up to speed with his tactical ideas.
“We’ll try with the players who come in at the beginning, which is quite a lot of them already, to implement our idea of football as soon as we can,” says the boss.
“And when the rest come in a bit later, hopefully the ones who are there already can help us as a coaching staff so that they know what is being expected. Probably it will go as fast as possible because we have to be ready for the first game with Ipswich away.”
With a tour to the USA set to take place in late July, there is still no official return date in place. However, we’d expect something around the first or second week of July.