Arne Slot Reveals Why Liverpool Splashed £295Million to Transform Attack for New Season

Liverpool manager Arne Slot has recanted the club's record-breaking £295million summer spend, saying they had to quash their rivals' attempts to overtake them.

The club have made headline-catching buys like Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez in a radical remake of the squad's attacking stock ahead of the new campaign.

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Slot, who joined last season, believes the injection of new faces will give Liverpool the tools to improve tactically and stop themselves from being one-dimensional against opponents.

"We think bringing Florian's creativity, bringing Jeremie Frimpong's speed, Hugo and Milos Kerkez, we have quite a number of boys who can give us assets in games (games that are tight)," Slot said on the Men In Blazers podcast.

"If you don't change, if you just continue to do what you are doing, people do find the solutions for your way of playing. And that already happened the pieces in the second half of last season – although, numerically, we scored the same number of points in the second half of the season in the first half of the season."

The Dutchman clarified that Liverpool's attack was heavily reliant on set pieces towards the end of the season.

"But I did notice us struggling a bit more. I think we scored more from set pieces in the second half of the season, to score one goal. West Ham United at home. Nottingham Forest away. Leicester City away, where we won one-nil," he went on.

"So we, we had to use a little more our set pieces as well which is a very big part of football."

Slot is convinced that the new signings will help Liverpool create more opportunities when they are playing against defensive teams.

"But in an ideal world, we are able to create even more possibilities against the low block than we did last season without losing on our defensive structure," he explained.

While focus has been on marquee appointments, Slot also is targeting Liverpool youth. Teenagers Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni have been promoted to the first-team squad after impressive pre-season performances.

Ngumoha, who was signed from Chelsea last summer, became the club's youngest-ever player during January's FA Cup success at Accrington Stanley.

His strike against Athletic Club a week last week – nine touches to a clinical finish – has done nothing but fuel the hype around him.

Slot welcomed the news of the 16-year-old's improvement but cautioned not to over-play his expectations.

"Rio has had a good pre-season," he said.

"It took a while for him to settle, which is understandable if you're 16 years old. He would join us last season sometimes and now pre-season, he has adapted extremely well.

"He has the quality. He doesn't mind taking a one for one in making the right decisions. If he feels his mate is in a better position than him, he'll play the ball. But I can tell how difficult it is for 20 year olds, 25 year olds, 30 year olds to play every three days at this level. And that is something we have to give him – time.

"Right now, of course, he's not a regular starter, but for him to train every single day at this level is going to be extremely hard and demanding. Let's just be patient with him, to get used to it all – but he definitely started well to this pre-season."

With the window still open, Liverpool's pursuit of a centre-back and Newcastle striker Aleksander Isak could yet make the summer one to remember – but Slot's message is unequivocal: in order to evolve, being a choice is no longer an option if the Reds are to remain at the top.