Arne Slot's press conference: Liverpool – Bayer Leverkusen 4-0, Luis Diaz, intensity and more

For the performance…

As is often the case, managers change their game plan when they come to Anfield or play against us – we saw that today too. We've seen a lot of Leverkusen games, but I've never seen (Victor) Boniface play from the left. So they played without a nine and therefore heavily overloaded the midfield. It was quite difficult to push them up. But the good thing was that we hardly conceded anything and I think if there were chances in the first half, they were for us. But (in the) second half we were able to adapt to the game plan of the first half, took a little more risk, were also better with the ball. Normally they defend more in a 5-2-3 system, now they defend in a 4- 4-2 system, so they changed quite a bit and we were able to adjust to that at half-time.

On the decision to play Diaz through the middle…

A few things (why). Due to the injuries to Diogo Jota and Federico Chiesa, I only have four attackers available at the moment and Darwin (Nunez) didn't play that much at the beginning and then started playing a little more. With this schedule list, it's almost impossible to play them all, especially if you haven't played that many games before. Combined with the fact that I think (Jonathan) Tah – who is a really good defender and one of the best defenders in Germany, maybe the best defender in Germany – maybe prefers to play against a target player, someone who is there in the middle ? We decided to play Lucho more on the left or in midfield and then maybe surprise him with runs backwards – not just him, but in general. If you look at the first goal it looks like this – what a pass from Curtis Jones.

Whether Diaz could be used regularly in this role…

If we have our injuries like we have at the moment, that could happen, yes. But that also depends on who is available and how the opposing team lines up, what the lineup is like. I think last season when both played – Cody Gakpo and Lucho – it was more likely Cody playing at 9 and Lucho at 11, and that's also a possibility. But then again maybe we had that size of Cody versus Tah instead of someone a little more versatile dropping back to the midfield.

On Diaz…

Not only the people of Colombia like and love Lucho, Liverpool fans also love him very much. I often heard the fans signing his song. And the manager likes him a lot too – I don't love him, but I like him a lot! He has played many, many games, but I just said something about Darwin Nunez: in the Premier League and the Champions League you have to play so many games at the highest level and it is not always possible for every player to have played every game , especially not specific positions. So if you're a centre-back, you don't usually run as much as a left winger, a full-back or a midfielder – and especially our wingers. But because you all look at the goals that Lucho scored and the goals that Cody scored, I also look at how hard they hit back and how much they have to defend. I ask a lot of them, so sometimes we have to change them. But Lucho is a starter for me. And I said that about Cody three days ago – he's a starter for me too.