ReactionArne Slot press conference: Beating Real Madrid, Bradley and Wirtz displays and more
Arne Slot saluted an 'impressive' display from his Liverpool team as they defeated Real Madrid 1-0 in the Champions League.
The Reds followed up a weekend victory over Aston Villa with another clean sheet and win, with Alexis Mac Allister's second-half header seeing off Real at Anfield on Tuesday night.
It means Slot's men have collected nine points from four outings in the competition this season, and continued their positive response to a frustrating preceding run.
See everything the head coach had to say at his post-match press conference below...
On how impressive Liverpool's performance was...
Impressive, because we played against an incredible side, a team that is in an unbelievable run of form - only lost once, won all the other games. If you then can win against them, but also with the performance we had, that's very positive. But apart from everything we can say, we beat them because of a set-piece. It's nicer to talk about this if you win because if you lose, people come up with that I try to find excuses. But a positive set-piece balance is the minimum you need to get a result nine out of 10 times, and that's what we had today.
On a second clean sheet in a row, Conor Bradley 'setting the tone' and how much of a corner the Reds have now turned...
So, let's be clear: we had a very bad run of form in terms of results. No excuse in the world can make up for us losing so many games. But we had to play a lot of games in a small amount of time, with hardly any rest in between when we then faced a team that had a lot of rest. Tonight we played against a team that played on Saturday as well, so the both of us had two days' rest. Then it's helpful to play a home game, because from the last eight I think we played six away from home. The fans can give you just a little bit of an extra edge if you are a little bit tired.
Conor was outstanding. It was very nice. Last season he was outstanding against Real Madrid but he had to go off after 80 minutes because of an injury. Now, three days after he played 90 minutes against Villa, he again played 90 minutes with incredible intensity against Vinicius. I told the players before the game, they have scored 26 goals in La Liga and Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius have 24 goal contributions together. So if you want to have any chance of winning a game, you should defend your set-pieces well because that's a way teams score, but great individuals can score goals as well and these two definitely can. Conor defended very good against Vinicius.
On the atmosphere...
I was impressed by the atmosphere throughout the whole 90 minutes, even before the game already. I think the fans helped us over 90 minutes and not only the time when Trent [Alexander-Arnold] was on the pitch.
On whether he spoke to Alexander-Arnold...
Only short afterwards, I gave him a hug. I don't even exactly know what I said but probably not a lot. But every time I will meet him, I will either give him a hug or talk to him because he has been very special to me as a player and as a human being.
On what he saw as the 'common points' between the displays against Real and Villa...
The common points, I think both teams played quite similar against us. Maybe the difference was that I told the players today that I wanted them to either press really high or go to a low block, because Vinicius and Mbappe are for so many reasons incredible players but their deep runs, timing of deep runs, their pace is next level. So don't give away any space in behind and that's what our last line did very well tonight.
A very solid defensive performance in both games. But it also helps if you are not one goal down or two goals down, because if you are one or two goals down you need to take extra risk, you need to force much more. And if you have to force and take extra risk then you're sometimes a bit exposed on the other side as well. But in my opinion, in general, even the games we've lost, we have hardly conceded a chance, except for the set-piece goals of course we conceded.
On whether Mac Allister is getting back to his best after injury disrupted his pre-season programme...
Yes, but I don't think he's the only one. I just spoke about Conor Bradley, who now - I think for the first time in a long time - played twice 90 minutes in three days. The same is to be said about Macca. All the players they need a bit of time, sometimes to adjust to the Premier League, sometimes to adjust to the limited rest we've had and then in other leagues I think 15 to 20 games in almost any league if you are a big club are 'easy wins'. But in the Premier League there's never an easy win, that is something you need to adjust to as well. If you miss pre-season or if you come from a different league, or if you're a bit younger, then these are things you need to adjust to. Conor Bradley has only played 30, 40 games for us and Macca is, after Villa and also by the way against [Crystal] Palace where he had a decent performance, he and the team are getting fitter and fitter. That is the first step we have to make for us to get results.
On whether he uses stats to highlight the attacking danger of opponents and shutting Kylian Mbappe out for a second season at Anfield...
I didn't even tell them that in the Champions League he scored two goals against Marseille and he didn't score the goal against Juve, but Vinicius was the lead-up to that goal. I think he [Mbappe] scored three against Kairat Almaty. I don't think you can ever control these two completely but you can do a few things well. But, I even saw today, the biggest chance they got was when Vinicius played the ball towards [Jude] Bellingham because they have more than only these two - they have all very good players. It is difficult to control them completely because Kylian Mbappe was more than a few times in dangerous zones, but I think we did almost the maximum you can do against these two individuals.
On Florian Wirtz's performance...
I've said it many times and I can say it one more time, but it is all up to everyone else to have a different opinion or the same opinion as I have. If you come from a different league and you have to play every two days and there are so many away games need to be played against certain styles of play, you need to adapt to that. That goes almost for everyone, let alone for a player that's 22. I think he's working incredibly hard to adapt as soon as he can and he has been so unlucky throughout his career here at Liverpool because even today he created so many chances for the team. But the goal we scored wasn't an assist or a goal from him.
I wouldn't even say give him a bit of time because we gave him already that time to adapt. I played him many times for him to adapt to the Premier League, but I didn't play him every single game because that's not what I do with almost any player, but also not with players that either missed pre-season, are very young or come from a different league. They need a little bit of time to adapt if you have two days' rest after the [Eintracht] Frankfurt game and you have to go away to Brentford, that is different probably than having an away game in the Bundesliga or in the Eredivisie or in any other league in the world. This league is the best-played in the world, I think - all the 20 teams. So you can understand that so many great individuals and athletes are playing here, mainly from 25 to 30 and at some teams you also see 22-year-olds.