Arne Slot shares honest verdict on Liverpool progress as fixture list assessed

Arne Slot believes his Liverpool side can only be judged at the midway point of the Premier League season after they moved top of the table. Mohamed Salah’s penalty shortly after the hour secured a hard-earned 2-1 victory at rock-bottom Wolves on Saturday evening.

Ibrahima Konate had put the Reds ahead in first-half injury time only for the centre-back to then be partly responsible for a mix-up with Alisson Becker that allowed Rayan Ait-Nouri to equalise.

Liverpool are now a point clear of champions Manchester City in the embryonic table with Slot having won seven of eight games in all competitions since replacing Jurgen Klopp in the hotseat.

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But the Reds head coach is confident his players will not become carried away by their strong start to the campaign.

“Everybody is realistic enough,” said Slot. “All the players have so much experience that they understand six games into the season doesn’t give you a realistic view of the league table. That is more like 19 games when you can really feel ‘okay, where are we?’.

“Of course, it helps if you get some good results especially if you bring in a new manager and a new staff and being a successor of such a successful one.

“Everybody understands if we’d have lost four or five of these opening fixtures then life would be a bit different that it is now.”

Slot added: “I don’t think it’s necessary for me to convince the players the challenges we still face.

“I’ve said it a few times now that two years ago was last time we played in Champions League and we all know what kind of a season that was. Last season we had a much better season but then every time the players got a rest during the week and could play once a week.

“That’s a completely different situation to playing Champions League in midweek against a very tough opponent and then play Arsenal or Aston Villa or all these top teams we are going to face after the next international break.

“For us there is still a lot to prove especially if you look back at the season two years ago and it’s still almost completely the same group.

“Wolves absolutely don’t deserve to be last because they had a very difficult fixture list, and in almost every game they deserved more. You could even argue (that) today because it wasn’t that we were so much better than them in the game, they were doing a lot of good things.

“If they keep doing this against other teams as well they won’t end up 20th, and we still have to prove when we come up against Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea and Aston Villa, who Wolves have already played, that we can then still be up there with Champions League games included as well.”