Alisson Becker says he is enjoying Arne Slot’s style of football at Liverpool and said the new head coach is aiming for ‘greatness’ at Anfield.
Slot began his Liverpool reign with a 2-0 win at Ipswich Town last weekend and the Reds return to Premier League action when Brentford arrive on Merseyside on Sunday.
The former Feyenoord boss has been tasked with replacing Jurgen Klopp, who stepped down as manager at the end of last season following nine decorated years in charge.
Alisson has opened up on the changes the new manager has brought and said he is enjoying Slot’s demands to build from back. He praised the new manager’s willingness to switch up his style and said the Dutchman’s ambitious aims with Liverpool have been well received in the squad.
“His way of playing is the way I like to play, starting build-up, not only kicking long balls,” Alisson said to The Times this week.
“If the manager prepares the team for that, it’s the best thing, because everyone wants the ball, everybody wants to play and everybody shows themselves to get the ball so I have a lot of options on the pitch to play the pass.
“I don’t only have one option. It’s not that he says, ‘Just play short passes, you cannot kick long balls.’ He is open to everything and understands that in football sometimes you are going to use long balls.
“We train it. Myself, Virgil [van Dijk], we have quick players up front. If we can create spaces starting from goal kicks or deep positions then that is also good for us.
“The first contact is really important. It does not define the relationship for the year or the years, but it was really important to see how clear he is in his ideas and see how cool he is as a person as well.
“He is a really nice person, a family guy, a family man with a lot of conviction in his ideas of what he wants from the players and the team and what he wants to achieve. His goals are for greatness, great things at the club. The same as mine.”
