After seeing his team lose two goal lead twice and seeing his best player, Mo Salah miss a penalty kick, Arne Slot has come to say the Reds have no issues despite the loss.
The game had ended 2-2 in regulation time with goals from Hugo Ekitike and Jeremie Frimpong for Liverpool while Jean-Phillipe Mateta and Ismaila Sarr were the scorers for Palace.
Softfootball watched as Dean Henderson became a Palace cult hero after making not one but two penalty saves to help Palace win the 20205 FA Community Shield.
Giving his position on the game, Slot who spoke the Liverpool’s media said there were no issues despite the defeat. He explained that:
“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.”
He continued by saying the team is still learning as it is still preseason mode. He said:
“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.”
Slot also spoke on his new signings who scored goals today, both bought from the German Bundesliga were on the score sheet. Slot heaped praises on them by saying:
“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.”
Liverpool look like a team yet to find their defensive shape. They had conceded 4 against Ac Milan in Asia and have now Palace comeback twice. This might be their undoing in the coming season.
