ReactionArne Slot press conference: Every word on Wolves 2-1 Liverpool

Andre scored with a deflected shot in stoppage time of Tuesday night’s Premier League game, meaning the first of two trips to Molineux this week ended in a loss for the Reds.

Rodrigo Gomes had put Wolves 1-0 up in the 78th minute but Mohamed Salah quickly equalised.

Rio Ngumoha then saw an attempt tipped onto the post by home goalkeeper Jose Sa, who went on to save a Virgil van Dijk header just before Andre’s winner four minutes into added time.

See Slot’s reaction in full below.

On Liverpool’s performance and the result...

Same old story. Recently, we are picking up points because many times we’ve scored from set-pieces, but what did not change in the last five, six or seven games is that we struggle and find it very hard to score from the open-play chances that we do create. Not as many as I would like from all the ball possession we have, but enough and far more than the other team. But, end result, we score one and they score two – and indeed another time in extra time, so it sums up our season again in this game as well.

On the concession of several late goals in Premier League games this season...

What I mean with ‘it sums up the season’ is that that we’ve had far more ball possession than the other team, we’ve created more open-play and in-general chances than the other team, but from open play we struggle to score. Recently we’ve scored a lot from set-pieces. Today again, we had a lot of set-pieces. First half, [they were] very poorly taken – a bit similar to how we played. I don’t think we played a very good first half.

The second half was better; still not great, but better. Created more and in extra time – or just before extra time – I think we were twice very close from chances to score the 2-1. Mo was dribbling and had on the left and the right two players open, but the ball was intercepted by the defender, and the Virgil header.

Those are chances and the one we concede is not even a chance, and that is what has happened so many times to us this season. That it happens in extra time might be a coincidence maybe, although it happened so many times, but we hardly gave away a chance today. We gave away one chance but conceded two.

• Read our match report from Molineux

On being unable to break down Wolves’ defence...

Well done by Wolves. They made it really hard for us, compact, and in the first half I think – and it is also what I showed them at half-time and told them – that it was possible to play a bit faster from side to side. And if you play a bit faster than the few times that we did in the first half, our wingers at least have some time to take their full-back on. I think that happened in the second half better than in the first half, that’s why we also came closer and closer.

[We] had more crosses or penetrated more in the box than we did in the first half, but then it’s also finishing off those moments and picking the right player in front of goal when you arrive. So ‘slow’ or ‘predictable’ are words that I can understand [Van Dijk] uses, but if you want to go faster, you have to be able to dominate situations on the sides because then something can happen. We struggled to dominate on the sides today.

On whether losing games like this ‘changes his expectations’ for the season as a whole…

No. My expectations have changed throughout the season because I expected more from us than where we are fighting for now. But it’s another setback and we didn’t help ourselves with this result, not at all. But there are still eight [Premier League] games to play so we are coming closer and closer to the end and then dropping points in a game where it’s absolutely not necessary if you look at the run of play... it wasn’t that we played so great, I’m not saying that, but if we play this game in this fashion 10 times I don’t think we will lose 10 times.

It’s far from sure that we win every time because therefore we were not good enough. If we don’t want to rely on a deflected shot, we need to do better, we have to play better, but we’ve had enough chances to win the game. But credit to Wolves as well, they fought from the first second until the end and got, maybe, a little bit of luck, what they deserved if you look at how much they put in throughout the whole game.

On whether Wolves’ winner was down to bad luck or whether Liverpool ‘did anything wrong’ in the lead-up to it…

If I remember it correctly, I think we won the ball back with Curtis Jones. He played it back to Ali [Alisson Becker], who then cleared it somewhere 30, 35 yards away from our goal, I think. And, I don’t know the name of the player who took the ball, but I think he also dribbled forward and scored the goal. What do we do wrong in that situation? Yeah, maybe, if we could do it one more time over maybe Curtis clears the ball himself, Ali kicks it to the side instead of through the middle.

You can always do things different but a deflected shot [off Joe Gomez], I have to see how he puts his body in front of the ball and if he could do anything about that or not, or it was just bad luck. But it’s not the first time a ball goes in from a deflected shot. I think it was Sunderland at home as well when it happened.