Arne Slot has sent a warning to his Liverpool players ahead of Sunday’s trip to Southampton as the Reds head into the weekend with a five-point lead
Arne Slot has warned his Liverpool players against looking ahead to next week’s huge games with Real Madrid and Manchester City before they are entertained by Southampton on Sunday. And the Reds’ head coach thinks the squad only have to look at the difficulties faced by Arsenal and City when they played the Saints for reasons why they cannot get complacent at St Mary’s.
Liverpool return to Premier League action this weekend five points clear of Pep Guardiola’s side, who are aiming to halt a run of four successive defeats in all competitions when they entertain Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday evening.
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The Reds will know what they have to do to either preserve or extend their advantage at the summit by Sunday afternoon and with Russell Martin’s team currently 20th in the division, few are expecting an upset when top meets bottom.
Slot, however, referenced how tough the Saints made it for City in their narrow 1-0 victory in October and Arsenal’s 3-1 win a few weeks earlier in a game they trailed in, as reasons for why Liverpool should not be gazing towards the glamour fixtures with European champions Madrid and Guardiola’s Premier League holders.
“I am confident that (the players keeping their focus) will happen,” Slot said. “For me it is not just to do with age. We do have a few older players but we also have quite a lot of them in the age group in between, but they are all experienced.
“They all play for their national team. They saw last season they were competitive throughout the whole season and the seasons before, so for them it is not the first time they go into a week where they face two teams that dominated football in the last four or five years in the league and Champions League.
“They also saw because they follow football as well how difficult Southampton made it for Arsenal and for Man City to get a win. It not only has to do with age, it also has to do with experience and all of them have experience.
“Southampton have been unlucky but their style is excellent, they could have got a result in every game. Everyone is looking at Real Madrid and Man City, but this will be tough too on Sunday.”