Liverpool boss Arne Slot saw his side taste defeat for the first time this season in the Premier League, as they lost in dramatic fashion late on at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
The Reds had a tough test throughout in south London and thought they had rescued a point late on, but Eddie Nketiah won it for Palace in the 97th minute.
“Palace deserved to win. They were much better than us in the first half, could have been up 3-0 or 4-0 maybe, we had to thank Alisson it was only 1-0,” a realistic and somber Arne Slot told BBC Match of the Day. “If I want to look at it from a positive side we created quite a lot of chances against a Palace team that hardly ever concedes a chance. If I look at it from a negative side we conceded far, far too many chances from the limited ball possession Palace had.”
Here’s more of the latest Arne Slot reaction from Selhurst Park.
Arne Slot reaction
On the result and performance: “Very difficult first half for us. They did really well. Deserved to be 1-0 up. I think we were even lucky it was only 1-0. Second half performance was maybe a bit the opposite. I think we had enough chances to score, took a while before we scored one and when we scored one there was only a few minutes left. You think it’s going to be a draw but from their second set piece they won the game.”
On both goals coming from set pieces a concern: “If you want to compete and want to be right up there you need a very positive balance in set pieces. That is what I always say, for years, and in this league that is probably even more the situation. That was one of our biggest strengths last season. We hardly conceded a set piece. Now against Newcastle we conceded two and today we conceded two so that is something we need to do better. But this league is more and more about set pieces. We had to defend a lot of them as well and the margins are small. One of our players in the last minute runs forward to maybe try to counter attack for a second goal but in that area the ball falls for a Crystal Palace player who scores.”
On the first half and needing Alisson to make several good saves to keep them in it: “Their gameplan. It is a team, their game style, the way they play fits really well to their players. They go to a low block. Their counter attack is a big factor with the fast players they have, the big target man they have in Mateta, and if we try to press them they are very good at playing the balls in-behind a lot to the last line. We had a lot of problems with that in the first half. A lot. Four or five chances we gave away. Which is a lot. For the rest of the team we had ball possession, playing the ball from right to left but then it is so hard to play through that low block. It’s even harder if they’re already 1-0 up.”
On not being able to create clear-cut chances: “No, the second half we did have them. Alex [Isak] had a very good chance. He did everything to stay on his feet. The same Jeremie Frimpong did in the second half once when he got tripped inside the 18-yard box and he tried to do everything to stay on his feet and of course Florian Wirtz had a big chance from the cross from Dominik Szoboszlai. I think second half our performance was better which wasn’t that difficult compared to the first half.”
On terms of the timing of the winning goal, any issues with that: “No, not really. It is never ideal if you concede a goal in the extra time of extra time, but there was a substitution in extra time so half a minute extra was fair. I don’t know exactly when they scored but half a minute of extra time was normal. I have to check to see exactly when they scored. That’s not what it is about. We have to defend that throw in much better than we did.”
On the mark of his team now being how they respond to losing their 100 percent record: “Yeah, we take a lot of learnings from all the games we’ve played until now. This is something we can maybe even learn more from and from the others is wasn’t as though we were perfect until now when it comes to the way we played. But we were always a team that fight really hard to come back into the game. That is what we did again today but today it didn’t lead to points because they scored the winner.”
