Liverpool head coach Arne Slot dismissed suggestions nerves are starting to affect his side and believes his players have the experience to cope with the pressure of a title run-in.
Sunday’s 2-1 victory over Wolves, in which they endured a nail-biting last 25 minutes after the visitors scored, was the sixth match the Premier League leaders have won by the margin of one goal.
The Dutchman has his own experience of winning a title with Feyenoord two years ago but inherited a dressing room full of Premier League champions from 2020 when he moved to Anfield in the summer.
He is backing the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and Mohamed Salah to lead the squad through some more inevitably testing times.
“I think it always helps if you have experienced it already, that’s not only me but also for the players,” he said.
“We lean a lot on the players because we train with them, I give them a pre-match meeting to try to prepare them in the best possible way but from that moment onwards you lean on the players – how much work-rate do they want to put in, how well do they execute the gameplan, do they adapt to what the other team does?
“It helps not in the sense they have won the league here maybe but they are used to playing big games in their career with a lot of pressure: Macca (Alexis Mac Allister) has won a World Cup.
“I think it helps you if a team or a player already won something but don’t make that too big because you still have to play for it and you can’t compare the circumstances.
“So the ones that won the league here already that was in Corona(virus) time with fans not being in the stadium and at a certain point they were 25 points up so you can hardly talk about pressure then.
“Although I am the type of manager that if there are 10 games to be played and I’m 25 points up I still feel like ‘oh, we have to win’ but there was hardly any pressure then.
“But we do lean on the players because they have to show up and bring the performances in but not in the manner where today or tomorrow they present a meeting on how to deal with the pressure, that’s not how it works.”
Liverpool head to Aston Villa on Wednesday with the chance to open up a psychologically important 10-point gap over second-placed Arsenal.
That would be their biggest lead since winning the league for the first time in 30 years in 2020.
Slot knows it will present a tough test, which is then followed by a trip to face Manchester City before Newcastle visit next Wednesday.
But he is comfortable with his side achieving narrow victories as he knows it is not always possible to blow sides away.
“We have played more games home or away that we led by one goal and in the end it was also tight: I can remember Crystal Palace away was really tight in the end and Vitor Jaros had to make a big save to secure the win,” he added.
“If this happens at the end of the season people – you guys (the media) – are going to talk about nerves.
“But securing a win in the Premier League, if you are only leading by one goal, is always going to be a lot of defending and hard work.
“During large parts of the season it is just hard work and in the end part of the season we talk about nerves – not me but a lot of people talk about nerves.
“We have managed many times to get a win over the line. In a strong league you sometimes concede a goal in the last minute.”
Forward Cody Gakpo remains unavailable with a foot injury, while the club have to assess Joe Gomez further before deciding whether he requires surgery on a hamstring injury which will see him miss a large part of the run-in.
