Arne Slot challenged his side to be much better than they were ahead of the trip to Newcastle. Liverpool began the season with a 4-0 win over Bournemouth, with new signing Hugo Ekitike on the scoresheet. The club completed seven summer signings, including record signing Florian Wirtz, and reportedly lodged a £110m bid for Alexander Isak. Newcastle's first Premier League home match is expected to be raucous amid strained relations between the clubs. Slot described Isak as a major threat but noted squad depth and acknowledged late-season struggles that forced reliance on set-pieces.
He scored against us in the League Cup final, and he scored against us in the away game [last season]. So yeah, if they have him, he's a big, big, big threat, but like any other team in the Premier League, if one is injured or not there, it's not like the manager has to look at his bench and say, 'now I have no one to play anymore'.
The atmosphere was amazing last year [at St James' Park], and the intensity levels of their players were amazing, and there were no talks then. They fully deserved to win the League Cup final from us.
What I do know is that we need to be much better than we were. In the end of the season, it was harder and harder for us to win our game. I think we had to rely a few times on our set-pieces back then as well.
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