ReactionArne Slot press conference: Liverpool 5-2 West Ham, set-pieces and Florian Wirtz fitness update

The Reds were three up at half-time of Saturday’s Premier League game at Anfield thanks to goals from corners by Hugo Ekitike, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister, but Tomas Soucek quickly made it 3-1 after the restart.

Cody Gakpo restored Liverpool’s three-goal cushion before Valentin Castellanos netted for the visitors, with an own goal by Axel Disasi – the defender inadvertently diverting Jeremie Frimpong’s cross into his own net – rounding off the scoring late on.

A third successive top-flight victory leaves Slot’s side level on points with fourth-placed Manchester United, who play on Sunday, and three adrift of Aston Villa in third.

Wirtz missed the game due to injury and Slot was asked afterwards whether the No.7 is expected to be fit for Tuesday’s visit to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Read every word from the head coach’s post-match press conference below.

On how pleased he was to see the first three goals scored from corners and his team’s general improvement in set-pieces…

That’s very pleasing. First of all, because that’s the reason why we won [and] second of all, because when I was just standing around your colleagues people said, ‘Well played, well played,’ and I said, ‘In my opinion, we’ve played better this season.’ We played OK to good – so, we were OK to good but it wasn’t the best game of the season. We’ve played better when we’ve lost [and] we’ve played better when we conceded set-pieces.

But as I always said, things went back to normal. We created quite a lot of chances from set-pieces in the first part of the season and almost every set-piece we conceded went in, and today you could see exactly the opposite happening. I think one of their first big chances was a set-piece that would have gone in in the first six or seven months [of the season], 100 per cent sure. But now we did it and we start scoring from set-pieces and then things look much brighter and better than when you don’t, and that’s really pleasing for us, for the team and for our fans as well.

On what has changed with Liverpool and set-pieces…

Things went back to normal, mainly, because I just said that we’ve created quite a lot of chances in the first half of the season that constantly did not go in, or too many times did not go in with being unlucky. We were a lot of times very close. And even today we conceded the set-piece, they scored one and they could have scored a second one in the first half – that would have been the first one, but you know what I mean.

Maybe one or two small details have changed defensively and offensively, I think we are set up slightly, slightly different. But the biggest reason is that things go back to normal. There was a period of time that we were 23 goals behind Arsenal in set-pieces, including penalties, by the way. And we’re still not only three goals away from them but we’ve closed the gap a little bit. Although you never know what can happen this weekend with Arsenal because I wouldn’t be surprised if they scored three from set-pieces this weekend as well.

• Read our match report from Anfield

On the spell in the game around conceding West Ham’s first goal...

This happened, I think more this season, that there were three, four or five minutes during a game where we struggled a little bit. But, as I said here so many times, usually in those four or five minutes a ball went in and if that then happens at 0-0, you have a different feeling because you’re 1-0 down than when it happens at 3-0 up. I don’t think there was ever a moment that they were close to closing the gap to one goal. They scored the 3-1, I think we [then] had the biggest chance for 4-1 with Cody Gakpo. Then it took a while before we scored the 4-1, which was scored by Cody Gakpo as well.

It came back to 4-2, we were having our chances again, so it was never under real threat but I could feel the nervousness in the stadium and that, of course, makes sense because so many times this season we’ve given away a very comfortable lead, completely unnecessary but it did happen.

I never like to concede a goal but if we have to concede a goal I like it that we had 10 players in and around our box and sometimes there’s a bit of bad luck that then the ball just falls with these one or two players of them when we had seven or eight over there, or quality by the individual who feels, ‘I have to be there’ – Soucek. That is, to a certain extent, something positive because we’ve conceded goals this season as well where not all of our players were back.

On whether Wirtz will return on Tuesday...

I think that will be too early, but I said last week I didn’t expect him not to be available for today, so sometimes with an injury things can develop in a positive way or in a negative way. Now we are thinking it doesn’t have to take too long, but Tuesday will probably be too early. The week after will be tight as things stand now, but as I said, I thought that he would be available for today as well, which didn’t happen unfortunately.