Arne Slot has provided an honest assessment of Wolves ahead of Liverpool’s visit to Molineux on Saturday evening.
Going into this weekend’s Premier League fixtures, Gary O’Neil’s side are bottom of the table, having earned only one point from their first five matches and exited the Carabao Cup against Brighton, who the Reds face in the next round of the competition.
Speaking in his press conference this morning ahead of tomorrow’s game, the LFC head coach insisted from what he’s seen of the Old Gold in recent weeks that their performances have been considerably better than their results would suggest.
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Slot said (via Liverpool Echo): “I don’t think it represents how Wolves have played. They’ve had a tough fixture list, Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea…more difficult than we’ve had, for example, so we need to take this into account.
“I’ve seen their games and they deserved more than they got. They will be fine this season; hopefully not tomorrow!”
This may seem like a classic case of a manager being diplomatic about upcoming opposition in public, but Slot is right in saying that Wolves’ position at the foot of the table hasn’t been reflective of how they’ve played overall.
Losing 2-0 away to Arsenal is no disgrace, while the Old Gold led against Newcastle and Aston Villa (both in the top six) before coming undone in the final 20 minutes. Also, they’ve done one thing that Liverpool couldn’t in recent weeks – take points off Nottingham Forest (1-1).
It was at roughly the same stage of last season that the Reds visited Molineux and, while the final score of 3-1 would suggest a comfortable outing, it was anything but. O’Neil’s side deservedly led at the interval before two goals in the final five minutes ultimately turned one point into three for the visitors.
Liverpool must also arrest their re-emerging tendency to concede the first goal, something which has happened in three of our last four matches, a point that Slot is sure to get across to his team before kick-off tomorrow.
Like every team in this league, Wolves deserve the utmost respect, but if LFC bring the quality in the final third that they showed against AC Milan and West Ham in particular, that should hopefully be enough to maintain their winning run going into October.
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