Amid the club’s poor run of form, there has been speculation over Slot’s future at Anfield and the Dutchman has now addressed talk of him getting sacked.

“For me they say similar things,” the Liverpool head coach said. “I speak mainly to Richard and once in a while to the others (Edwards and FSG). They also see similar things as what I see. For me the conversations haven’t changed a lot. We always talk about the game and it’s always nicer to talk about the game if you have won than if you have lost.

“[I feel supported] not only in this period but also when things go well. I’m a firm believer all the squads I had were 20-21 players that can play because if you have too many it’s already a struggle to make a squad. But then you have to keep them fit. Tell me if I’m wrong but I think during the week [the reaction] was about when I said something about the squad we are having, and that could have been seen as criticising or an excuse? 

“What I meant was, if these players are all fit we have so much quality. This club is in such a good place when you look at the quality we have for the short-term future and the long-term future. But – I’ve used Alex (Alexander Isak) as an example but I don’t want to go into every single player because players sometimes don’t like it when they are named as being fit or not – not all of them were ready from the start to play three games in seven days.

“And then when you get four injuries like we have at the moment, it is a struggle going into a programme like this. I used this to explain my line-up on Wednesday. I didn’t use it as an excuse for losing against Brentford or the loss before or the loss before. I did it because Ibou (Ibrahima Konate) and Virgil (van Dijk) had to play a lot. Joe Gomez missed out on the whole of pre-season. Macca (Alexis Mac Allister) missed out on the whole of pre-season.”