By james art The Reds have made a great start under the Dutchman, winning 11 of their first 12 games in all competitions and leading the Premier League in fixtures this weekend.
Yet while it may have exceeded the hopes of all but the most optimistic supporters following Jurgen Klopp’s summer exit, Slott doesn’t see it that way.
The former Feyenoord manager said ahead of Sunday’s test trip with Arsenal: “There were no expectations for me.
“It’s not like I was on vacation and thinking about how many points I will have after 10 games.
“The only thing I was thinking about was how I’m going to try to get the best out of this team – like Jurgen has been doing for so long – and how we can continue that. You don’t think about points.
“For me, the way I think about it is the process that we do, what we do on a daily basis and that, from my experience so far, leads to points.
“That’s why I didn’t have expectations when it came to the number of points in one, two, three or 10 games, but there were expectations from me about the way I wanted to see the team play. I think that meets my expectations right now.”
One area where the team has improved significantly this season is in defence, with just three goals conceded in their eight Premier League games.
“There are two reasons why we don’t allow a lot,” Slott said. “One of them is that in almost all the games – except for one – we dominated and controlled for the majority of the game.
“It helps if you have the ball and can give the defense a break to not concede afterwards, but I also like if we have difficult parts of the game – or a big part of the game against Chelsea – the work rate is amazing. This is something that is very important.
“Then if you combine Virgil (van Dijk) and Ibu (Ibrahima Konate) and the two goalkeepers we used, those elements are probably why we didn’t concede so much.”