Arne Slot played down links with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia after a report emerged linking the Reds with a possible January swoop for the Georgia international.

The Liverpool head coach was speaking to reporters ahead of the Reds' FA Cup meeting with Accrington Stanley on Saturday, and here is the full transcript from the press conference:

A lot of transfer speculation, Mo linked with Al Hilal, yourself linked with Kvaratskhelia, Chiesa linked with Napoli, Elliott linked with Brighton and Dortmund. Any substance?

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Slot: When you said 'yourself linked with', I was like, 'which club is he going to say now?' but you mean as a club that we are linked with Kvaratskhelia! What I make of that, is that it's January. I said after the West Ham game, don't disappoint me, please come up with all these clubs and all these players who we are interested in! 99 per cent of times at the end of the window, it ends up that all of these stories aren't true. The rumors keep coming, but no comment from my side.

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Szoboszlai, Quansah, how are they? And what opportunity to give minutes to Elliott, Chiesa and Bradley vs Accrington?

Every game is an opportunity for them to have a chance to play and this one as well. Dom trained with the Under-21s yesterday, Jarell was a bit ill last week. As a result of that I had to take him off during the game vs Spurs but I'm expecting him to be available tomorrow. We know we can use these players in every single game and also in the one we have on Saturday.

What do you know about the relationship between Liverpool and Accrington?

Not so much because I've only been here for half a year but I do know about the milk advert, probably everybody knows this. Immediately after the draw there was a clip about a player who was so happy he was going to play at Anfield. I know people from this area play for that club. Of course I know a lot about the time, and we're going to dive into it even more today.

The standards have been so high this season and when they slip, even slightly, it's noticeable. Any reasons for the lack of rhythm vs United and Spurs?

I don't see that many differences compared to many other games we've played. The only difference is we played these two games after winning 6-3 and 5-0. After those two games, everybody said, 'we knew they were good, but we didn't know they were that good.' If you compare to those standards, the games against United and Tottenham were of lower standards compared to those two, if you look at all the other games.

Even Leicester, we were 2-1 up with 10 minutes to play. The whole season, I said this many times, we won a lot of games, and all of them, aside from maybe Chelsea, we deserved to win, but never by a big margin. It was always very tight. If people ask me what can we improve, that is increasing that margin, otherwise you always depend on a bit of luck or a certain decision from the referee, and we must make sure that we don't depend on those moments anymore, and that's the next step we have to make if we don't want to depend on luck or bad luck. Crystal Palace away, they got a big chance before the end and we only beat them 1-0. I know in football it is the same around the world, we are only judged by the results, and because of the results, people judge your performance. If you draw or lose, people rarely say you played well.

The Tottenham game, if the referee would have given a red card, we would have kept a clean sheet and maybe been able to score. Everybody would have said, 'again, a difficult away game with a clean sheet, they totally controlled and dominated the game, again a good performance.' Because we conceded, it's all about us being a bit more sloppy. That's what this industry is about. It's up to me to see if there's really that much difference between us playing Leicester, Ipswich and Crystal Palace, and I think we are still the same team, also in terms of performance.

If you look at Harvey Elliott, he's had problems with injuries that have undermined his opportunities to progress. He can only learn so much in training, he does need games.

He's a talented player, he's been with us for so long. In recent weeks, he comes in quite a lot and gets some minutes, but like it is for him and all the others, he is in competition with the other players.

He's been unlucky with injury and was out for a long time. What I've seen until now, with almost all of our players that have been out for quite a while, is that in this league, it is not so easy to come back and be at your best immediately. I see this with all of our players. That is the balance we have to find, to give playing time to get them back to their best level but still to be able to win every game. Our margins are constantly small, but if you're 5-0 up, you can give players half an hour or a half, but that is not the way we have been winning games.

Teams attack more down Liverpool's right. Is that an area you need to look at to give Trent more protection?

I don't see anything in this. What we do have to see is how we concede our chances and our goals. That's not only about our right side. If they attack from the right or the left, they still have to come in the middle to score the goal. I do see a certain pattern in the goals we concede, but I don't see a pattern with Trent. He has had one difficult game for us (vs United), maybe a few that were ok to good, but mainly he has been great. I know there is a lot of focus on him at the moment but I would also like to highlight how well he did in the last half-hour against Tottenham and our fans' reaction pleased me too.

What are the challenges of facing a team from a lower division?

Every team that plays against us, it's a special occasion, especially for a lower league team, so they will be all up for it. They've probably been looking forward to this for many weeks, and the challenge is to bring the best out of ourselves. Everybody could understand that if you go to a Champions League final, everybody is completely hyped up, and tomorrow's match, for them, is going to feel like Champions League final. The first half an hour is the most difficult part of the game. It's up to us to be ready for them wanting to play the best game of their lives, and that is what we have to do as well.

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What's your experience of playing teams at a lower level in the Netherlands?

When I was at Feyenoord, I always said that I was unlucky with the draw. Almost every time we had a draw, we had the most difficult draw that we could get. That means you play the team that plays in the same league whereas other teams sometimes played against an amateur club. I don't remember playing against a very low league club in my managerial career in Holland, but I was only a manager there for three or four years.

How complicated have you found it striking a balance between giving players rest and keeping rhythm?

It's not difficult because if you are in a league like this, one of the most important things you can do is give players some rest when possible. Then you always wonder for yourself if they need a few days off, which has happened many more times this season. You always reflect and think what have we done, what could we do better. Both games were intense, especially against Tottenham, it was one of our best physical games this season. What was not seen a lot was that compared to the games two weeks ago was that we've changed five positions. If a game is out for six or seven weeks in this league, sometimes you have to find your rhythm in the first 15 minutes. If I look at the last 70 minutes of the game, we were arriving in and around the final third just as many times as two weeks ago. We weren't creating as many chances as two weeks ago, but that is normal, the final third is the most difficult area of the pitch.

What do you want to see from Chiesa in the second half of the season?

Every game is a chance for every player to get some playing time. It's difficult that he has to compete with the likes of Gakpo, Diaz, Jota, Nunez and Salah, and everybody knows the numbers Salah brings in. There's not many times a reason to take him out. Salah is so fit, and he does everything every single day and he wants to play every single game and he shows up every single game. It's not only Federico who has had limited playing time. Federico definitely has to deal with the way he came in... the rest were already training a lot and we had to bring him up in terms of match fitness. It's a combination of reasons why he hasn't played that much yet but let's see if he can help us in the coming weeks and months, because the second half of the season is more important than the first half.

Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni — will they be around the squad tomorrow?

We still have to train [today]. Yesterday we couldn't because our flight from London arrived back quite late, so we gave them a day off. We have to see how everybody is recovered today, and then we have to make a decision on which players we're going to bring to the game. Trey has been in the squad many times, Rio only once I think. These players are doing really well when they train with us and really well for the Under-21s As long as they keep doing well for the youth team, their chances will only increase for us of course.