ReactionPress conference: Arne Slot's assessment of Liverpool 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur
The Reds were denied victory in the Premier League by a late equaliser from Richarlison.
Dominik Szoboszlai's free-kick in the first half put the hosts ahead but the points would be shared after Richarlison struck in the 90th minute.
See a full transcript of Slot's post-match press conference below.
On the result and Liverpool's performance...
In the large parts of the game that we were the better team, I think that is a moment where you have to score the second. I think we had moments to do so quite a lot and in the part of the game where it was more equal – the last 15 to 20 minutes – on both sides, it was waiting for one of the two teams to score. They created the chances all in a similar way, the four or five moments they had: long ball, picking up the second ball and then try to be a threat in moments like that. We also picked up a lot of those second balls where we were able to counter-attack them, but from all these counter-attacks, all these four versus three, three versus two, all these moments that I felt with the quality players we have that we should be able to either get a bigger chance or when we have it, to score it, we didn't and then in the last minute we conceded the equaliser and then there's not a lot of time left to make up for it.
On whether the result is 'damaging' to Liverpool's hopes of securing Champions League qualification...
Of course it's damaging, but it's how many times this has been damaging for us. We don't help ourselves at all. It's so many times this season that we've created much more xG or chances than the amount of goals we score. Usually in the Premier League you see a lot of teams outperforming their xG, but that definitely is [not] what we are doing throughout the whole season. Then a game still stays tight until the end and we struggle to keep clean sheets. We haven't had as many clean sheets as you would want if you want to go higher up in the table. That's a bad combination for picking up the amount of points we want to pick up.
On the reaction at full-time...
I think it's understandable for fans to be frustrated because it happened already so many times that they've seen the home team not picking up the points that they're expecting to, us conceding goals in the last minute. Now it's up to us to bring that frustration to Wednesday and come up with a big performance. Because that we are all frustrated, that's completely clear. And it's now up to me and the players to take that frustration into Wednesday evening and show the fans the performance and the results they deserve, because they've been supportive throughout the whole season to us. Then if it happens so many times that they are frustrated in the end of a game or after the final whistle, that makes complete sense to me.
On why Liverpool were 'not clinical enough today'...
I was expecting you not to add 'today' towards the question. I think we've not been clinical enough throughout the whole season. Yeah, tell me why? It's not the quality of the players, I can tell you that. We have unbelievable attackers that are able – and throughout their whole career were able – to score a lot of goals. But it's not only not scoring the goals, like I said, it's also if you want to have a successful season, if you are not able then to score the second or the third goal then you make sure you don't concede. But we did. I keep thinking that with the quality players we have we will find moments, we will find games where we're hopeful of outperforming the chances we are getting. That's not what we are doing through large parts of the season.
On why he thinks the team has periods where they don't have control of games...
I think because we're not able to score the second goal, because that would immediately damage the momentum of the other team. But as long as it's 1-0, of course, it's quite normal that with either the substitutions the other manager makes – with going even more offensive, going even more direct, taking more risks – that can lead for them to create chances, which they did, but it also led to them being very open for counter-attacks. And then the way we conceded, we didn't concede our chances by being too open or being too offensive or being outplayed through the midfield or being too late with a press, it's just playing over the press, playing the balls into our last line.
And if throughout the whole game we never picked up any second balls, that is something then where you could say, 'Yeah, this is the whole game the same' but all the chances we had in the second half were when we picked up second balls and then counter-attacked them. But the three, four or five times during the game that we were not able to pick up the second ball, not clear it far enough, they were a threat and that's probably the belief teams have now when they play against us. And I think we might be a bit anxious towards the end as well, when we don't extend our lead. I think that's also normal if it happens so many times, that you start to think like that, and it's normal that the stadium has that same feeling.
On how much he can do to change the approach to games at this stage of the season…
I think approaching a game has not so much to do with the final minutes of the game. I think what you are trying as a manager or as a team is to outperform the other team in terms of chance creation. You always try to create more chances than the other team, because usually that leads to winning more than you lose. So that means attacking-wise, generate as much chances as you can. And defensively, don't give away as much. And I think throughout almost the whole season we've been on the positive side of that in terms of chance creation because we've not been a lot of times on the positive side of scoring goals or conceding goals.
How to approach the last minutes of the game, I think if you look back on it, which is maybe not the nicest thing to do if you're a fan of us, but we've tried, I've tried a lot of things. I brought in Joe Gomez in the last minute of a game to keep the lead at Fulham. We conceded. I brought in Wata [Endo] during the season to have that midfielder that picks up all the second balls. I've done attacker-for-attacker substitution, not to bring a defender in. We've tried many things but the way we are conceding goals is also constantly different. So, unfortunately, the things you can try to do as influencers from the side is in the defensive substitution or offensive substitution. I have tried many of them but it hasn't led yet to us not conceding in the last minute. But we also have our chances in the last minutes of the game, even today. In extra time we had an unbelievable chance that simply doesn't go in. But it wouldn't stay like that, I can tell you that.