In the 9th round of the Premier League, Liverpool lost 2-3 away to Brentford and suffered a fourth consecutive league defeat. After the game, Slott attended the press conference and talked about the game situation, tactical adjustments and other issues.
Talk about feelings after the game
It is disappointing again. Although you only have two days of rest after winning a game in midweek, you always look forward to better results in the next game. I also hope and expect a better performance from the team. But our performance tonight was far below the standard we should have. Even though we fell behind in the game, our usual performance was far better than this game.
Talk about the most disappointing aspect
The execution of the basic links. Although we are behind, the atmosphere of the stadium is more favorable to the opponent, and they are also very good at winning confrontations and second penalty kicks. We must admit this, but if the opponent uses this as their tactical focus, it is very difficult to win the game. I have emphasized many times that if the advantage of set pieces is also in their hands, it will be very difficult to win.
Talk about Brentford opening the scoring through a strong throw-in
This is the only thing we practiced on the training ground yesterday, and the tactical meeting also focused on this. Of course, we did not only prepare for this aspect, because Brentford is not only known for excellent set pieces, in my opinion, they are also good at quick counterattacks, and their second goal was obtained through counterattacks. It must be pointed out that this is by no means an excuse, but if I say that the penalty foul was very minor, I hope you will not accuse me of making excuses. It was indeed a "soft penalty" that should not have been awarded.
Talk about tactical adjustments in the midfield
Wertz also often moved inside in the first half, and Salah moved closer to the center, similar to what he did against Frankfurt. When we were down 2-1, I expected that the opponent might tighten their defense at some points in the second half and it would be better to have Salah move out wide at this time, where he can cross or break through one-on-one. But the rhythm of the second half was not completely controlled by us, and they still had many chances. Even though we tied the score to 2-3, they had several chances to make it 4-1.
Is this the most disappointing game while coaching Liverpool?
Yeah, this was definitely one of the most disappointing games I've had in my time coaching here. Usually when we were down 1-2, 1-3 or 0-1... By the way, those 20 to 25 minutes when we were 0-1 down were the only part of the game that I was happy with. It was a pity that Wirtz couldn't convert that great opportunity into a goal. You need a little bit of luck at this time because moments like this can bring us back into the game and give us energy. But after 30 minutes, the opponents took control of the game again through long passes, set pieces and other methods. Their performance was indeed outstanding. Please don't pay too much attention to my complaints just now, because they did play well in this game.
Then, I think Gakpo's breakthrough in the penalty area before they scored the second goal was a key point. If you showed that moment to all the referees in the world, they would probably tell you that neither was a penalty, but if I had to choose one, I would choose the one that awarded Gakpo. We had bad luck, I think the referee didn't intend to award a penalty, he just wanted to give the opponent a free kick, but VAR showed that the foul was in the penalty area, so if the free kick turned into a penalty, this bad luck may be because we did not play well enough today.
Gakpo was tripped and was not judged
Van Dijk sent a point
Talk about the reasons why Liverpool's performance this season is different from last season
I have said many times that other teams have adopted specific tactics when playing against us. This is a very good strategy, and we have not yet found a way to deal with it. It doesn't help that we always concede goals in the first five minutes. But even though we were in poor condition today, we still scored two goals and created far more sports opportunities than these two goals. The problem is that we cannot stay competitive, we concede too many goals, and this cannot be blamed solely on the defense, it is the shared responsibility of all 11 players. Of course, this is also related to the large-scale personnel adjustments we made during the summer window. Such fluctuations are not unexpected. But to be clear, I didn’t expect to lose four games in a row. After adjusting the lineup, we will definitely encounter some ups and downs, but we have suffered 4 consecutive losses and 5 of the last 6 games have been away from home. I don’t know if this is an excuse, but when we are in this state, such a schedule obviously does not help us.