Arne Slot has said his work at Liverpool is yet to win over one of his biggest critics – his own father.

Arend Slot has been a major influence on the Liverpool head coach’s career and remains heavily involved in their hometown club, Bergentheim, where the younger Slot started out and still makes guest appearances. Slot revealed Arend is fanatical about Liverpool but remains as hard to please as he was during his son’s playing days with FC Zwolle, NAC Breda and Sparta Rotterdam.

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“There have definitely not been many games where he has said: ‘Oh, I like what I saw,’” said Liverpool’s head coach. “The funny thing is he was always quite critical when I was playing, so when my son is playing I am like: ‘Oh well done, well done.’ Maybe my son will go to being critical again.

“When I called him after the [2-1 win over] Lille he said: ‘It wasn’t as exciting as other games of Liverpool’. I had to try to explain to him that these games you can easily lose if you try to force all kinds of difficult balls, but he’s not always agreeing with me. Curtis [Jones] tried to play one ball from the halfway line that had a bit of risk. We lost that ball and they counterattacked us. That is the risk you have if you play against a low-block team. I call them stupid balls – which my father would love to see us playing a bit more.”

Arend Slot did enjoy Liverpool’s 6-3 win at Tottenham and 5-0 drubbing of West Ham last month. “Ones in which we had a comfortable lead far before the end because he is always a bit nervous and almost every game for us is tight,” his son explained. “But I think if you asked him now he would tell you Manchester City and Real Madrid were his most special moments because he was in the stadium with my mum.

“He reads everything that is written about Liverpool. He is an ambassador for his amateur club and they play in Holland an hour before us, so the first half he goes there and then he goes home really fast so he can see our game. He is following everything like most dads do.”

Slot confirmed Jones will miss Saturday’s Premier League game against Ipswich with the injury he sustained against Lille but could return against PSV Eindhoven or Bournemouth next week.