Liverpool may be making life look easy after a 14th win in 16 matches but head coach Arne Slot insists that is far from the truth.
A Luis Diaz hat-trick helped his side to a 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen, managed by former Reds midfielder Xabi Alonso, to extend their Champions League 100 per-cent record to four matches.
It put them top of the table in both Europe as well as in the Premier League in what has been a remarkable start for Jurgen Klopp’s replacement.
“No, not at all,” he said when asked if he was finding it easy.
“You only look at results: Brighton was a difficult one on Saturday where we were 1-0 behind and had to fight really hard and that is what you saw today.
“We have to work really hard with incredibly high intensity to win our games and that has a lot to do with teams who think Anfield is the best place to play so every team we play against is at the top of their game.
“If you want to win you always have to be consistent in your intensity and that is not always easy but that is what is needed and if we can keep producing that it is still not easy but we get our wins in and that is what we want.”
Expectations were lowered when Slot arrived as he had the unenviable task of following Klopp but having achieved what no other Liverpool manager has done before, the stakes have risen considerably.
Slot understands what that means and is embracing the challenge.
Liverpool players embrace pressure
“I think if you work at any club around the world there is always pressure; for some managers it is not to go down, for some they have to win a lot,” he added.
“In our position there is always pressure and that is the pressure we give ourselves.
“If you work or play at Liverpool you know so many great players have set the standard so high here there always feels a bit of pressure but we also embrace this as this is what we want, we want to compete for everything.
“But the other side is if you work or play here you can enjoy incredible evenings because today the atmosphere was even more impressive than Saturday.”
After a stale first half, the match sprang into life with two goals in three minutes from Diaz and Cody Gakpo, before the former – playing in an unfamiliar position as a false nine – added two more late on.
“Not only the people in Colombia like Lucho, the people in Liverpool love him as well,” said Slot of the South American.
“I’ve heard many times the fans singing his song and the manager likes him as well. I don’t love him but I like him!
“You all look at the goals Lucho and Cody score but I also look at the fact how hard they track back and how much they have to defend and I ask a lot from them so that’s why we rotate them – but for me Lucho is a starter and Cody is a starter for me also.”
Alonso: We weren’t able to recover
Alonso, who won the Champions League in his five years at Anfield, had a disappointing return as his side were taken apart after holding Slot’s team at bay for an hour.
“The second half compared to the first half wasn’t good enough,” he said.
“Second half we weren’t able to hold the intensity and we dropped our tempo and the first goal is a consequence of that, we weren’t squeezing the line quickly enough, and after the second one two minutes later it was tough.
“We weren’t able to recover from that. To lose 4-0 is a hard result, harder (to take) than the performance but it is what it is. This is the Champions League at Anfield against one of the best teams.”
