Liverpool Dutch head coach, Arne Slot, has said, it is “very special” to win the Premier League title “once”, however, it will be “so difficult” to win the title successively.
The Dutchman hailed Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, saying, the Cityzens “did even better than us in the last few years.”
The Liverpool manager made the statement at his press conference ahead of the commencement of the Premier League 2025/26 on Friday 15 August, 2025.
Slot guided Liverpool to their 20th Premier League title, winning the 2024/25 English top flight season.
Liverpool will face AFC Bournemouth in their first encounter of the new campaign on Friday night at Anfield at 20:00 (WAT).
According to Liverpool official website, Slot said:
On how ready he feels Liverpool are to start the Premier League season…
“As ready as we can be. I think I’ve emphasised last week the fact that we have lost three or four starters and, unfortunately, Ryan Gravenberch was not able to play last week and is not able to play this week. So that means if you exclude the goalkeeper from the 10 outfield positions, five were different than the main starters we had last season.
“If you then look at the quality we bring on the ball, I’m very happy with that. Without the ball, it’s eight out of 10 times also very good – but the aim at this club is not eight out of 10 times, it’s 10 out of 10 times. And that is the fine-tuning we still need to find defensively.”
On his expectations for the season…
“The reason why that is so difficult [to retain the title] lies mainly in the fact that there’s so many competitors that can also win the league over here. To win it once is already very special, let alone if you can win it twice in three, four or five years, or as we did, twice in five years and [Manchester] City did even better than us in the last few years.
“So that’s unbelievable if you’re able to do this in this league. And probably this year is going to be harder than every year before, because every team brings in new players but our main competitors definitely did as well.”
On what he expects from Bournemouth on Friday…
“[They are] intense. They made it really difficult for us last season. We beat them 3-0, where you feel like ‘What is he talking about, difficult?’ But if you look at the game, they had the first big chance of the game, they scored a goal which was fractionally offside.
“Then we three times, I wouldn’t say counter-attacked them but we were very fast in moving the ball from back to forward. And all of a sudden at half-time we were 3-0 up, and then I thought – which I always thought when I was a manager in Holland – ‘This is going to be four, five or six-nil’.”
On improving Liverpool’s defensive solidity after pre-season…
“Don’t forget we missed [Alexis] Mac Allister as well in the last part of last season and he hardly was able to play in our pre-season, only now recently he has played a few games, played a few minutes.
“But it’s not that I’m not happy about certain parts, I was [saying] just a second ago that the standard here is 10 out of 10. So, it’s not one or two things we don’t do well, no. In general we do all well but well is not good enough and there we have to go one step up in certain aspects. Not in all aspects, in certain aspects.”
