Arne Slot has joked the early start to his Liverpool reign is thanks to predecessor Jurgen Klopp fuming at television broadcasters over the kick-off time.
Slot’s first competitive game since being named head coach sees the Reds travel to promoted Ipswich Town for their Premier League opener on August 17, which will be shown live on TNT Sports at 12.30pm.
Liverpool featured far more regularly in the Saturday lunchtime slot than any other club during Klopp’s nine-year reign, much to the agitation of the German who made vocal his displeasure towards the end of his stay at Anfield.
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And Slot couldn’t help but see the funny side when told about his new team’s first top-flight assignment for the new campaign.
“They’ve told me it’s going to be 12.30,” said the Reds boss. “From what I know, Jurgen (Klopp) complained a lot about this so probably they thought, with Jurgen being out let’s put them at 12.30 again!
“No, it’s different to a normal 12.30 because it’s not after a game in Europe. Looking forward to it. A promoted team so it’s going to be special for them as well.
“I think every team might prefer a home game to start with, but we’re going to face Ipswich and we are looking forward to that.”
Liverpool have yet to determine their full warm-up programme for the new campaign, although they will tour the United States in late July where they play friendlies against Spanish side Real Betis and Premier League rivals Arsenal and Manchester United.
After the trip to Ipswich, Slot’s first competitive home game will be against Brentford the following weekend. But the Dutchman has underlined the importance of the forthcoming pre-season period.
“Every new club you go to and it’s your first home game, it’s special,” he said to liverpoolfc.com. “But the first thing I’m going to look at is the first training session we have and then afterwards all the sessions that come after and games we will play.
“I think everybody would tell you in football you go game by game, and the first and most important one is Ipswich.
“But if I say this and the players would listen to this, they would get the wrong impression of me, because the friendly games are really important for us to be in the best possible position for the Ipswich game.”