Transfers, Brighton prep and more: Every word from Arne Slot's press conference

In terms of the quality he has, he would deserve more playing time at this football club or the club he's playing for, because he has the quality to play for us. But unfortunately for him, he's in competition with Mo Salah when it's about the right wing. And I think he could also play as a left winger but there's Cody Gakpo and Lucho Diaz. I don't think I'm wrong if I tell you that these three have had a great, great, great season. And for him starting one or two or maybe even three nil down because the moment he came in he was not as fit as the other players were.

That then, of course, doesn't help in the beginning and before he was as fit as the rest, the other ones did so well that there was not a lot of reason for me to change, and even to be in a squad then becomes difficult if Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota are there as well. But is he good enough to play for us? Yes, he is. I've always felt that Lucho Diaz, Cody Gakpo and Mo Salah deserved the confidence I had in them and I hardly ever changed that set-up between the three of them.

On how important it has been for the players to celebrate what they have achieved this season...

Normally, especially in this league, but in general – even in Holland – the last game is really special. You should watch it. It's about the last game and normally in this league it's also about the last game. And if you want it done and you want to go after the season then wives, girlfriends, children are like, 'Yeah, come on, I haven't seen my dad for such a long time. Let's go on holiday now with the family.' Which I can completely agree [with]. So, we were having the great position that not only we won it earlier on already, but also we've played on Sunday and then the next game is on Monday.

Like I said, even if we wouldn't have won it yet, they wouldn't have had four days [off] but they probably would have had two or three [days off] then as well. Because in the end of the season, you have to find the right balance in keeping them fit enough to play but also get them mentally fresh. That's what we've tried to do. Last week before the Arsenal game, we had a few days off as well and this week also.

On whether Alexander-Arnold leaving could 'overshadow the end of the season'...

I was already happy that no-one asked about it! I thought, 'OK, we can leave this behind!' Last week people talked about it to me and then, of course, we had the reaction of our fans in the stadium, which was different – positive and negative. Then all the pundits talked about it, the whole country talked about it. And I think now it's time to draw a line under that. Let's focus now on the fact that we've won the league and for us to enjoy the upcoming one-and-a-half week with that feeling and not talk and be distracted that much about Trent's situation.

On how much of his focus is on the final two games compared to planning for next season...

Did you see me this week on social media?! No, no, even if you are celebrating over there, that doesn't mean that the whole day you don't think about something else. A larger part now is already [on next season]. Indeed, my thoughts are into next season [more] than it would have been if this game of Monday and next week against Palace would have been decisive for us to either finish top five or win the league or whatever we had to do. But now it's clear what we've done, so I think it's a normal situation that my thoughts if I'm on the couch tonight or another moment are more into next season than they would have been if it was still very important.

That's also the challenge not only for me but even more for the players for the Monday game, because maybe their thoughts are already more on playing for the national team one-and-a-half week later, where these games are probably even more important to them than the upcoming two weeks. Although [from] what people told me, Palace at home will be a very special one to look forward to. Probably that's the answer to your question. You think about it more, you have more meetings about that now than you would have had when it was even more important to win a game of football than it is now.

On Curtis Jones dropping deeper against Arsenal and whether the remaining games provide opportunities to try new things...

I think [Alexis] Mac Allister did this a few times as well, but it all depends also on the way the other team presses. The good thing if you play a team like Arsenal, which is also the difficult thing, but you know what you can expect. They have the quality and it's perfectly done by them but you know what to expect. So then sometimes you give a little bit different details to your midfielders [on] how to do the build-up than you might do in other games. I wouldn't see too much into that. It's just a small detail. I think what we've changed throughout the whole season, the general idea of playing was the same but we always tried to adapt to the way the other team wanted to press us.

Click here to read article