Liverpool welcome Leicester City to Anfield on Boxing Day in their final home game of the calendar year. The Reds will be looking to maintain their lead at the top of the Premier League table with a win over the Foxes.
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Arne Slot’s side thrashed Tottenham Hotspur 6-3 last weekend to open up a four-point lead at the summit after second-placed Chelsea were held to a goalless by Everton. Liverpool have lost just once in all competitions this season and are now clear favourites for the Premier League title.
Leicester City, on the other hand, enjoyed a mini new manager bounce under Ruud van Nistelrooy, securing important results against West Ham United and Brighton & Hove Albion.
However, the former Premier League champions suffered humiliating defeats against Newcastle United (4-0) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (3-0) respectively. The Foxes have lost their last four meetings with Liverpool who are in fine form ahead of the game.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference. Arne Slot said: “I think the positive [for Leicester] is that teams that are positioned in the lower side of the league table, they mostly lose games, but since Ruud [van Nistelrooy] is there they also won a few.
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“So that shows you that he has done really well, especially when he came in. Now I think he had two tough results in a row. These teams, all of them, it is special for them to go to Anfield and they know if they go to Anfield they have to be at their best, so they will never underestimate us.
“And hopefully maybe that’s the good thing about these 15 minutes we saw [on Sunday]that we understand we cannot underestimate one minute in the Premier League because then we are not as good as we might think we are if we are on top of our game.”
Arne Slot and Ruud van Nistelrooy are set to meet each other in the dugout once again having done so in the Eredivisie as the coaches of Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven in 2022-23 respectively where Van Nistelrooy got the better of Slot in the head-to-head meetings.
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Slot added: “I was expecting you to tell the people over here that I lost once and drew once, but you made it positive saying that we won the league title! Which was true.
“Cody Gakpo was in his team, so I am happy he is in my team now when we face Ruud, because I think in both games he scored.
“Ruud is a very Nice person, first of all. I’ve met him once or twice. And I think he did really well when he was at PSV because for the last one-and-a-half years they have been on top of the league table, but if you look at the second half of Ruud’s season I think they didn’t even lose anymore, at all.
“So it wasn’t a surprise that after he left and they bought so many players – because PSV started buying a few more players than they did when he was working there, because when he was there Cody Gakpo and [Noni] Madueke sold.
“But he still showed that he could compete for the title. Nice person, good manager, did well at [Manchester] United as well. Looking forward to seeing him, especially if we win!”
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