Arne Slot

I think it always starts if you want to be a leader by leading by example.

And that's what he's done since the one and a half year I'm here.

He's always the one that without the ball is incredible.

The way he can press the intensity.

He keeps running backwards, forwards.

And I think he improved this season on the ball compared to last season, where last season I already liked him.

But this season he plays with even more confidence and he's more often involved in chances and goals.

So he's having a good season as some other individuals have as well.

The moment we were having a big chance to score the 2-0 that hit the post or the bar.

Ten seconds later they had a big chance and usually this season that ball goes in and we're all complaining.

But now the ball went over and we extended our lead to 2-3-0 and the performance is still the same.

We're already seven, eight months into the season and I don't think Virgil has had more than three days off and it's the same for Ryan and it's the same for all these players.

But they constantly show up, they constantly show mentality no matter how many setbacks we've had this season.

I think we played a very good game.

I don't know if Jamie saw it because I heard he was constantly on the phone with his mum, but I can tell him we played quite a good game today.

Yeah, I find it hard to listen to you, Jamie, because you were the one that told me that I had to make sure we didn't concede that much, so I started to do that, and as a result of that, people were complaining that it became boring, so I'm not sure if I should listen to you.

But because of some injuries we have, because of the players we have available and the style of play Masaya has, we thought it was a good idea to play with Mo and Hugo up front and to overload the midfield with players that are very good in between the lines.

And I think you could see that today with full-backs that could attack down the side and Mackay and Ryan who could help out Joe and Virgil in build-up.

So that worked, in my opinion, quite well today.

I watched Real Madrid-Barcelona for Dutch television and after 32 minutes when it was still 0-0 the commentator said that Barcelona played really slow and boring and that was because Madrid was constantly in a low block and it was really hard for Barcelona to play through.