InterviewWhy Arne Slot believes Liverpool's whole squad can learn from Community Shield defeat
Arne Slot believes Liverpool’s defeat in the FA Community Shield can serve as a valuable lesson as his squad prepare to begin their Premier League title defence.
The Reds were beaten on penalties by Crystal Palace after a 2-2 draw at Wembley on Sunday.
New signings Hugo Ekitike and Jeremie Frimpong scored for Slot’s side, who kick off the new top-flight season against AFC Bournemouth at Anfield on Friday night.
Ekitike and Frimpong were joined in the champions’ starting XI against Palace by fellow fresh faces Milos Kerkez and Florian Wirtz and, speaking to Liverpoolfc.com after the game, Slot said: “I think it’s a good first impression the new players have, [those] that haven’t played in this league last season.
“This [Palace] was the number 12 [12th-placed team] of last season – a very good team, [who] especially in the end they did so well that they maybe are better than the number 12 [position] they ended up in.
“But if these are the number 12 that can make it such a hard time for you, you know what you are going to have to expect if you play here and that is what they know now.
“And the ones that played here for a longer time also know that if you won the league, if you wear a Liverpool shirt, everybody wants to win desperately against you and we have to be more ready for that than we were today.”
Prior to Palace’s two goals, Liverpool had also conceded nine times in six pre-season friendlies.
When asked if this record is an area that needs to improve, Slot replied: “The main thing is not to concede chances and if you don’t concede a lot of chances it’s very difficult for a team to score a lot of goals.
“You saw against [Athletic Club] Bilbao we only conceded the two set-piece goals, we hardly conceded a chance, so I was really pleased with that.
“And today I saw a team again that worked really hard, but we faced a team that is just bringing every ball in behind the last line and every cross into our box, so that is hard to defend. It’s a difficult strategy to play against, a difficult game plan to play against.
“But we did quite well, in my opinion, until the moment of the 2-2 where we opened up completely in the middle and he could just go one-on-one to Ali [Alisson Becker], which happened in the first half as well.
“That is too much for us but overall I don’t think we conceded so many chances that we now have to discuss us being poor in defence. But if you want to win something, you cannot concede in every game two goals.”