Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has shared his honest reflections after the Reds fell to a 3-0 defeat against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. The result halted their recent momentum and exposed the gaps in consistency that have plagued their Premier League campaign so far, Softfootball reports.
Liverpool, who came into the match off the back of a narrow 1-0 win, struggled to match City’s intensity despite some early promise. Captain Virgil van Dijk whose equaliser was ruled out for offside, has since taken responsibility for the defeat, admitting the team didn’t rise to the occasion.
Speaking to the press via the club’s official X handle, Slot acknowledged his side were outclassed in key moments but also highlighted positives they could build on moving forward.
On the result and Liverpool’s performance, Slot said:
They were, in every aspect of football, better [than us in] the first half. I would say like last season; I saw a lot of similarities between last season and this season with one main difference in that after we struggled in the first 25 minutes a lot we scored a set-piece. That changed the game. They kept on outplaying us for 90 minutes but it did help us to get some energy to keep defending well. Last season, they didn’t create that many chances. I think today they created more, but it wasn’t that they had chance after chance after chance, but this time they were much more effective with the chances they had. First goal, I don’t think it’s a big chance, I think it’s also quality. Third goal, it’s not a big chance but it is quality. Second goal, set-piece.
On the mood in the dressing room, he explained:
Of course, everyone is disappointed. It was a very good start to the week, winning against [Aston] Villa and Real Madrid, but if you thought you already faced two strong opponents then Man City comes across, away at the Etihad. That is, for every team, difficult, including for us. They were by far the much better side in the first half.
Addressing the VAR decision that ruled out Van Dijk’s header, Slot noted:
I would like to emphasise the fact that being 2-0 down at half-time was a fair reflection of how the game went. But I have been on the opposite side, that my team was much better than the other team, we were 1-0 up and then maybe not scoring the second one and the other team gets a set-piece, it’s 1-1 and then all of a sudden things change. So, this can happen in football. It’s not to say for me it was clear and obvious for me that it was the wrong decision that this goal was not allowed, but I will not say that because of that we’ve lost the game because after 1-1, if City just kept on playing like they did then we would have struggled in the second half as well.
But, I constantly felt if we were managing to keep maybe 1-0 down until half-time, we can maybe adjust a few things, which was definitely necessary because we were constantly coming one or two players short in the midfield because Doku and [Nico] O’Reilly gave us a lot of problems with the two of them. Then 1-1 would have been the biggest gift we could get at half-time because, in my opinion, the second half was a different game, but being 2-0 down and later 3-0 down that maybe doesn’t give a good reflection of how things would have went if it would have been 1-1.
Meanwhile, the Dutch manager expressed his frustrations at the poor performance of his teams and hopes the results improve going forward as they can’t afford to drop any more points if they are to defend their PL title they won last season. Watch the full post match conference shared via the team’s YouTube channel, below:
When asked about Liverpool’s five league defeats and their place in the title race, he responded:
Yes, it feels too many and the last thing I should speak about now is the title race. We should first focus on getting results – result after result after result – before we can even think about that and the reality is that we are eighth now. One team is quite far ahead, although City are four points away from Arsenal. The rest is quite close and I said last season many times, even when we were leading in the beginning, the best way to judge the league table is of course after 38 [games] but the next best thing is to judge it after 19 games because then you’ve all faced the same opponents. And our first focus should be on getting results and the last thing we should focus on is the title race, which is something we could do last season but also not the previous two seasons before. But we need to improve and that’s obvious.
Slot concluded by stressing that Liverpool must rediscover their rhythm and consistency before setting their sights on long-term goals. He reiterated his belief in the team’s potential but admitted they must focus on performances before talking about ambitions. He added that unity, discipline, and a strong mentality will be key if Liverpool are to rediscover their winning edge in the coming weeks.
