ReactionArne Slot press conference: Wembley display, areas to improve and Ekitike impact
Arne Slot acknowledged the areas for improvement Liverpool have after they were beaten on penalties by Crystal Palace in the FA Community Shield.
The Reds were twice in front during Sunday’s season-opener at Wembley, where new arrivals Hugo Ekitike and Jeremie Frimpong were on target with their first goals for the club.
Jean-Philippe Mateta had converted a penalty for the Eagles in between, though, and Ismaila Sarr later forced a shootout when he delivered a second equaliser.
And it was Palace who claimed the silverware from the spot-kicks, edging out the Premier League champions 3-2.
Slot assessed the encounter during a post-match press conference, explaining his appreciation for Liverpool’s attacking play but highlighting the need to reduce the amount of goals being conceded.
Read a summary below…
On what he thought was ‘the main issue’ for Liverpool on the day…
The main issue, I don’t think there was a main issue unless if the other team misses two penalties and you still lose within five penalties, that of course doesn’t help. But I think in general, it was a game where we twice came one goal up and, in my opinion, we controlled the game until the moment they scored the 2-2. Then, all of a sudden, although we still had one big chance for Mo Salah, we could have lost it in the end as well. But until that moment, [at] 2-1, there was every reason for me to expect that we would win this game. But after the 2-2 we were maybe lucky that we could go to penalties.
On whether he was able to learn anything to take into the season, despite the defeat…
Yeah, but that’s not something new. I think in the whole pre-season we saw that we are able to create more and we are more comfortable on the ball, we create more opportunities, chances, we dominate maybe even more. Last season we had a lot of ball possession but that didn’t always lead to promising situations. Now, we are better in creating and getting promising situations than we were, in my opinion, throughout the whole of last season.
But the other side is also true, that we have conceded four against Milan, one against the Japanese team [Yokohama F. Marinos], two against [Athletic Club] Bilbao and again two today. What made us really strong last season was we only won mostly by a margin of one goal and that had mostly to do with us keeping a clean sheet or as a maximum conceding one goal. Today we scored twice against Palace, last season we were not able to do that once – we beat them 1-0 and we had a 1-1 draw at Anfield. That’s the positive.
But conceding two; against a good team, by the way, that has made it really difficult for everyone last season and I’m expecting them [to] this season again. A lot of balls passed into our last line and a lot of crosses. For me, I felt that we didn’t give away that many chances until they scored the 2-2 and then they were threatening us more.
On what his message to the players was between full-time and the penalty shootout…
There was not a big message. It was just making sure that everybody was calm and not distracted, to take their penalty. It was quite clear which five were going to take it, so then it was only the following order that we had to decide, and that’s what we did. Then, it’s for the players to get their focus for the penalty and that’s what they did. It was quite clear from the first second who would take it, there was no distraction, but that didn’t lead to us scoring all five.
On how Liverpool can strike the right balance between creating chances and being defensively solid…
We’ve indeed replaced four players and sometimes you need some time either to adapt offensively or adapt defensively. But against Bilbao we didn’t concede one chance at all, maybe one, I don’t know, but we conceded two set-pieces, which are also a big part of football. But that’s not from open play. I don’t feel we conceded that much today but again we conceded two goals because the first big chance they got resulted in the penalty. Maybe I forget a few chances but it felt to me that in the 78th minute, that was their second big chance of the game. But in general there were not many chances because they went to a low block [and] we had a lot of ball possession. But after the 2-2 they had [chances], so it needs maybe a little bit of adjustment defensively at the moment because we don’t concede a lot of chances but we do concede goals at the moment.
On Ekitike’s performance and what his goal will do for him moving forward…
I think it’s always nice to score a goal – not only for him, also for Jeremie Frimpong – if you start your career at a new club, but it would have been even nicer to win a game of football because I think that’s more important than scoring a goal. He had a good impact but he is also an example of a player who came, I think, one-and-a-half to two weeks ago, at the end of our Asian tour. So for me, with only three or four days before the Friday game, it wouldn’t be smart to play him for 90 minutes because… of course we have Federico [Chiesa] but he has not been on the Asian tour as well, so there’s not a lot to replace him with. So, if he gets an injury at this moment of time, that would be a big risk for the Bournemouth, Newcastle and Arsenal games. That’s why I took him off but he had a good game today, that’s for sure.