Arne Slot press conference: Liverpool 1

See Slot's full verdict on the encounter at his post-match press conference below...

On what he felt went wrong in the game...

The result. And the fact that we went 1-0 down so early. If you play United, with so many quality players they have - [and] brought in a few new ones this summer - and if they come to us in a low block, playing so many long balls, then the last thing you would want is going 1-0 down. Because that gives them even more belief. If you would have told me we are 1-0 down against a United team that played in the style they did, and you would have told me that we would create eight, nine, 10 open chances, then I would have said to you that I don't think that is possible. But it was possible.

So, the second thing that went wrong is that from all the chances we got, we only scored one goal. I have said it in Holland many times and maybe I've said it here as well, it's almost impossible to win a big game of football - and Liverpool v United is a big game with so many quality players on the pitch - to win it with a negative set-piece balance. We conceded another one and that led to us losing the game.

On whether he believes the first goal should have stood, with Alexis Mac Allister down with a head injury...

I think the main thing we should do now, I should do now, is not complain, blame or do these kind of things. We could have done much better after Macca was on the floor, we should have done better. But the healthcare of a player is something that is important and if a player needs to have four stitches, you would hope that everybody understands that he needs immediate treatment. But it didn't happen. But, again, we could have done better, so that's not the reason why we lost this game today - the reason is because we missed far too many chances to win a game of football.

Again, I've said it here many times and I'm hoping that I'm not just saying it to you but everybody understands this a bit better, we are not a team - which I see a lot in football - that goes to the floor pretending it's a head injury so they kill the counter-attack. That's not who we are. We never go to the floor, we always are a fair team. So if a player of us is then on the floor you would hope everybody would say, 'It's Liverpool, they don't do these kind of things, so let's blow a whistle.' But, again, that's not an excuse for us conceding the goal and that's not an excuse for us losing this game of football.

Read our match report from Anfield here

On if he is concerned by confidence levels after losing four games in a row and whether this period is his biggest challenge since becoming a coach...

I think as a manager you face constantly challenges. When I just started, you face the challenge of being new manager and then you need to win games. Then when you do well you go to a bigger club and people are like, 'Oh, let's see how he does over there.' Then you go to be the successor of Jürgen Klopp and people say this is the biggest challenge you ever faced. Now we have lost four times in a row and that's also a challenge. So, the life of a football manager is an ongoing challenge. If you win games you want to keep winning, if you lose games you want to start winning again.

Do we lose confidence? I cannot see it yet, because every single game we've lost, we were able to create in the second half an unbelievable amount of chances. If you look back at all the three games we've lost in the Premier League, if you just put all the highlights [next to] each other, you would say it's hardly possible that they lose this game. So if we can keep producing what we are doing and do a few things a little bit better, then there is every reason to expect that we start to win football games again. But I cannot promise you that on Wednesday evening we are again able to create eight, nine or 10 open chances. I hope so, and with the players we have then it will lead in the end to us scoring more goals.

Then there's of course the part no-one asked about but I can tell you. Apart from the two goals we conceded, we have conceded maybe two or three more chances, but this is the struggle we are having being 1-0 down; then you need to take a bit more risk. And then I am even quite positive that we limit the opponent so much to the chances they are creating. Because we do take a lot of risk in the moment; after 55 minutes, I think we had six or seven offensive players on the pitch. That might also maybe not be an excuse but be the reason why the structure in defending a set-piece against [Crystal] Palace and now was not as perfect as we usually are, because normally you play with four, five, six defensive-minded players but at that moment we are on the pitch with seven or eight offensive-minded players. That's not an excuse because they should do better, we should do better, but maybe it's not a coincidence that exactly in those moments of time we concede a set-piece.

On whether it's 'small margins' for his team, with Gakpo hitting the woodwork three times...

And scored a goal, Cody, and was in multiple moments. We only focused on the open chances we had but I saw crosses coming in close to being a chance. If you win then you can say the margins are small and people believe you. They say, 'Yeah, but you are still winning' and if you say it now people are like, 'Ah, that's not an excuse we would like to hear.' But Harry Maguire had an even bigger and better chance last season at 2-2 over here that he missed, and now he scored. After that we had a Cody chance, apart from all the others he had, it was maybe not his biggest one, because the goal he scored was the biggest one. He almost hit the woodwork, by the way [with the header]. At this moment in time, I think it's the margins you are talking about, but we soon have to prove that we can do better than what we are doing at the moment.

On if he is confident his team's recent form is 'just a blip'...

That depends on if we can keep bringing these performances in, and as we all know in football if you start to lose a game of football one, two, then three, then four, you always find the same challenges. Players that thought they maybe had to play longer, or didn't deserve to go out, or these kind of things. In the meantime, we as a team still have to keep on going and that's for me very positive at the moment because if I look at the players who start [they] are able to create a lot. If players come in, they come in with the right energy, if the players go out, they are behind me hoping that the Maguire goal would have been fractionally offside or trying to push their teammates to score [for] the 2-2. All these things are very positive, which is maybe also normal if you won the league last season. But we should keep doing this and that is something I cannot promise you again on Wednesday evening that we will again be able to create eight or nine open chances like we did against Palace and like we did today. But maybe it's a better idea to create less and score more.

On Mohamed Salah's form...

I think it's quite normal. In the first five or six games, every question I got was about the new players. Now you ask me about another individual, [but] I don't think it is the time to talk about individual performances. As a team, we expect more than where we are at the moment - and as a team, I don't think we are used to a Liverpool team, certainly as long as I'm here and I don't think it was any different when Jürgen was here, missing so many chances.

Like I said, Mo had a good chance today. We just talked about Cody, who had four or five maybe. Hugo Ekitike was a few times really close. Alexander Isak went one-on-one with the goalkeeper in the first half. We had 10 corner kicks, I think, they only had four. We don't score, they score. So, this weekend again, as it showed so many times recently, set-pieces are such a crucial part in football. You play the game of football [in] open play - and I said it in the press conference on Friday - we are the team that creates the most in open play. I don't think that has changed after today because all of our chances came from open play. But that's not the only way to win a game of football. That's what United showed today and what other teams showed this weekend as well, I think Chelsea scored three set-pieces, winning 3-0.

Virgil van Dijk's assessment of Liverpool's defeat by Manchester United

On Ryan Gravenberch's substitution...

I took him off because he twisted his ankle. Is he an injury concern? That's what we have to wait and see tomorrow, but we have to play in two days again because again we have to play three games in seven days, like we had to do after the last international break. There is not a lot of time for players to recover but the good thing is we have more than one good midfielder.

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