Arne Slot is making ‘bad excuses’ for Liverpool’s dire form because it is their job to adapt, says Rio Ferdinand.
Slot has admitted that Liverpool struggle against a direct, aerial style of football and that they lag behind when it comes to winning duels and second balls.
Their alarming slump has seen them lose four Premier League games on the bounce and slip from first to seventh in the Premier League, seven points behind frontrunners Arsenal.
‘You want them [managers] to speak and be open, but if you’re a Liverpool fan, [you’re] going, “why is he speaking like this? Why is he talking so much?”‘ Ferdinand said on his Rio Ferdinand Presents YouTube channel.
‘The excuse about teams playing long balls against us, there are many ways of playing football, more than one way and tiki-taka. There are ways to win which are so different.
‘If a team is playing long-ball against you… this is what I find funny, just because you score from set-pieces like Arsenal, listen, if you’re going to win games and win the league, who cares?
‘It’s a bad excuse when you say teams are playing [in a different way] – you should be able to deal with it.
‘You’ve got some of the best players in the world. You’ve got Van Dijk and [Ibrahima] Konate, two of the best centre-backs in the world. You’ve got two full-backs that you spent a fortune on.
‘You should be able to deal with that. Or, adapt and find a way to deal with it. If teams are playing long ball against you, win the first ball and get your midfielders to be closer for the second ball. Second ball in the Premier League is one of the biggest things you’ve got to be able to adapt to.
‘They’re being asked to adapt to that, and right now, four defeats on the bounce, he’s saying they can’t, so they’ve got to find a way.’
After Liverpool thrashed Eintracht Frankfurt 5-1 in the Champions League last week, it looked as if they had turned a corner.
But Slot used his press conference after the game to deconstruct how they struggled against a certain style of play.
‘In the last four of five games we’ve played we were not able to press the opponent, because the ball wasn’t on the ground. It was through the air,’ he said.
Then, after their 3-2 defeat by Brentford on Saturday, he said: ‘Teams have a certain playing style against us, which is a very good strategy to play against us. And we have not found an answer yet. Going 1-0 down after five minutes does not help. Teams know which strategy to play against us.’
While Slot has gained some plaudits for being refreshingly honest, there has been a concern that he is exposing the best way to play against them. Richard Keys called it a ‘daft’ approach.
Ferdinand also highlighted that their summer transfer business has so been been disruptive.
Losing Trent Alexander-Arnold was, of course, a highly publicised blow, but the Manchester United legend also points to the £65.5million sale of Luis Diaz to Bayern Munich as influential. The 28-year-old already has seven goals and four assists for the Bundesliga champions.
Ferdinand said: ‘[Diaz leaving, I don’t think that’s good business. I think he’s a top player.
‘Diaz being allowed to leave the club – have they replaced him with anything better? Is [Cody] Gakpo better? I would say no chance.
‘They’re just not functioning, they’re not playing as well, the new players who have come in have unbalanced the team in the way the manager is trying to play it.’
