\n<\/p>\n
Slot spoke to reporters at the AXA Training Centre on Friday morning to preview the fourth meeting between the clubs this season (Saturday, 3pm BST).<\/p>\n
Having provided an injury update<\/u><\/strong> and confirmed Hugo Ekitike underwent successful surgery<\/u><\/strong>read on for some more topics from the briefing.<\/p>\n On being in a good position to secure Champions League qualification for next season… <\/strong><\/p>\n That is what results recently have done to us. I think in the last eight games we’ve picked up 16 points, and it doesn’t always feel like that because in between we had to play Paris Saint-Germain, Man City. But our recent league form is acceptable. <\/p>\n On his faith in Freddie Woodman if Alisson Becker is unable to play against Palace…<\/strong><\/p>\n For a reason, we’ve signed an experienced third goalkeeper. Usually you don’t need him that much but there could be situations if one is injured and the other one gets a suspension \u2013 that usually makes more sense than expecting two goalkeepers to be injured. Then it’s needed to have a third goalkeeper with experience and that’s why we were happy that we could pick him up on a free transfer this summer, apart from him being a good goalkeeper \u2013 which he’s shown. <\/p>\n I think when he was young he won the Euros with the U17s and I think with the U20s he won the World Cup. Then he made himself a career at Newcastle, at Preston North End and has the experience to play even at Premier League but definitely at Championship level. And apart from that, he’s a very good man and he’s very liked in the dressing room, and I think that’s also a role that’s important for the third goalkeeper if he’s not playing. If he’s playing, it’s more important that he has a good performance than that his teammates like him. And that’s why I think he’s ready for it, but it will always be helpful if the fans are there to support him tomorrow.<\/p>\n On what makes Palace such a ‘difficult’ opponent…<\/strong><\/p>\n As always, what makes it difficult are the players you face. I think they have a good team. They already had a good team two or three years ago. From that team, (Marc) Guehi is now at (Manchester) City, (Eberechi) Eze, (Michael) Olise, who’s at Bayern Munich (and) making a career for himself now. And, of course, they have a very good manager, who’s able to bring a lot of discipline in that team and it is really, really, really hard to create chances against them. <\/p>\n I’ve watched, with my staff, quite a lot of games \u2013 as we always do \u2013 of these teams but probably now a bit more to find ways of creating chances against them. It doesn’t matter which game but you’re watching 60 minutes of football and you haven’t seen the other team creating a chance yet against them. And then on the other end they are very direct in their playing style with good attackers going quite fast in behind your last line. So, I think they have conceded, after Arsenal, the least goals, so that tells you a lot and there’s a reason for that because they hardly concede a chance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Slot spoke to reporters at the AXA Training Centre on Friday morning to preview the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}