ReactionArne Slot press conference: Every word after Brighton 2-1 Liverpool
Read Arne Slot's assessment following Liverpool's 2-1 loss at Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League.
The Reds fell to defeat at Amex Stadium on Saturday after a Danny Welbeck brace secured the points for the hosts.
The striker's goals came either side of a well-taken equaliser by Milos Kerkez.
Slot gave his reaction to the match in a press conference afterwards – read on for the full transcript.
On what went 'wrong' for his team in the game…
What went wrong started off with the lead-up to this game, as so many times happened this season. When we played a very good game and we thought we could bring that level to the next game, or even better, we had Mo Salah injured and we have Alisson [Becker] injured. After two minutes Hugo Ekitike [is] out, so that has happened so many times to us this season and again now. What happened a lot this season is also that the first chance of the other team immediately went in. But Brighton deserved to win if you look at the second half, because in the first half I think it was an equal game but in the second half Brighton were the better team on the pitch and they deserved to win.
On Alisson and Ekitike's injuries...
Alisson will definitely be out during the international break and let's see afterwards. Hugo, I think he could play tomorrow if he needed to. It was a dead leg, as you call it here I think. Brighton did what we expected. If you face a team that has only had 62 hours of rest and the first thing you do is make it an intense game, play the first duels, play tough duels – nothing wrong with the duels, by the way – but unfortunately it was a collision and that led to Hugo going out. Yeah, that's not helpful after two minutes.
You have to continue without one of the best strikers that the league has seen in the last three or four years already not available throughout the whole season, Alexander Isak. One of the best goalscorers the league has seen in the last eight years not being available with Mo Salah. And then missing out on Hugo Ekitike, who has had a lot of impact this season, him being out.
And then as so many [times] this season you have to find a way of playing players in positions they are maybe not used to and in the first half I think we did this quite well. But as the game went on, Brighton became stronger and stronger. A few times this season we were able to maybe let something happen off the bench. Rio [Ngumoha] had a few very nice actions but throughout the second half I think they were closer scoring the 3-1 than we were scoring the 2-2.
On what he put the 'lack of creativity' in his side down to…
I have a clear opinion what that's down to but that's not what I'm going to say over here. As I said, they were the better team and created more chances than us. Everything I say about this people will see this as excuses and I never like to use excuses after the game. Give credit to them. They were good. I think it was nice for their manager that he was able to bring [Kaoru] Mitoma in because he was quite good again.
On picking the players up after inconsistent results…
Yeah, that is not easy, although we had a big win [against Galatasaray] during the week. I think you cannot compare Brighton away with Wolves away. You cannot compare a game that we should have won in terms of chance creation and every other metric there is in football to a game like here. Brighton away, that's a difficult game for any team, [not just] for us, but for any team to go here, especially if you miss out like us on a few very influential players. We're talking about the No.9 position but again I had to make a substitution and a full-back position with a player that's not used to playing there. Of course, now looking at the league table, this loss hurts a lot and it should hurt us a lot.
But the main problem is that we are in this position because we dropped points at Wolves in the last minute with a deflected shot a week ago – not a week ago because we had to play on Sunday, not on Saturday, but Sunday and then Wednesday and then Saturday. Not as all the other Champions League teams [are] playing on Sunday, but we had to play on Saturday in the early kick-off. That goal last week [against Tottenham] in the 90th minute is, I would say, even a bigger problem than losing away at Brighton.
On what suffering 10 defeats in a Premier League season for the first time since 2015-16 says...
It says a few things. First of all, it says how and what great teams Liverpool has had in the last 10 years, I think. And a great manager, by the way, as well. I could come up [and] tell you all the reasons why we've lost 10 times this season. Now one of them we just heard – late goals – and I think today sums it all up in terms of injury problems this season. To go without three great goalscorers, it's never helpful for any team. And again, the right full-back position... but, OK, it's not my job to find excuses – my job is to find answers. That's what I tried to do again today and it worked out, in my opinion, not too bad in the first 45 minutes because we were playing with them and we were, in my opinion, close. They were a few times close, we were two times close. In the second half, they were the better team.
On whether he understands a 'lack of sympathy' around the injury situation after the summer transfer business...
No, I have complete sympathy with that, for all the people who are saying this, because no-one in England is used to the fact that there are also clubs that are selling players. So usually in England when a club is buying [for] £450m, which we did, that's adding that to the already great team you are having. But this club has a different model. That no-one wants to see that and no-one wants to understand this, that I can also understand, because fans of other teams or certain pundits don't want to tell you that we've sold for £300m.
Now if then the £150m player is never available, that's already one thing. If Giovanni Leoni has never been available because of his injury, that is already the second thing. So now we're already going underneath what we've sold. Jeremie Frimpong is recently much more and more available and [Giorgi] Mamardashvili was one of the other signings for £450m, the second goalkeeper. It makes complete sense if you win the league last season and you spent £150m, not £450m, that expectations are high and those expectations were high for the pundits, for the media, for me, for the fans.
But at our club we are also looking at the situation and the things we had, the challenge we had during this season and then we might be a bit more realistic why this season has gone the way it has gone. But still it's not good enough. No matter how many excuses I can come up with, it's still not good enough, the position we're in right now.
On whether the international break comes at a good time...
Yeah, it's a break for me, maybe it's a break for you, but it's not a break for the players. I saw this today for the first time and maybe if I'm saying something wrong now then I'm wrong, but I thought I read today [Thomas] Tuchel, the England national team manager, said to 15 players they had to come in later during the camp. And if I am correct, but I have to read all the names one more time, those were mainly the players that have played Champions League and played so many games this season.
Unfortunately for us, it's the only country where we don't have internationals, so all the other ones will probably use our players again twice. I think, but it's also something I'm going to ask our data department, that a lot of our players are in the top 10 in terms of playing minutes, because I have so many times had to play the same players because of the model we are having, because of the injuries we are having. We don't have a big squad, we always have to come back to the same players. But these same players today showed character because I thought I saw that all the ones that played Wednesday were still able to compete in the end. Maybe not as fresh as they were Wednesday but they didn't give up and that's an important asset to have for the last period of the season.
On whether Kerkez was anticipating Lewis Dunk's header for the equaliser...
Maybe he was, that's something else, but I didn't tell him. Maybe because he's playing three years in the Premier League now, he knew or expected it. I do think we played a team that always wants to play football and always wants to bring the ball out from the back and have centre-backs that are calm on the ball and don't kick every ball long. So, I think it's nice to have a season ticket over here because this team always wants to play. Apart from the result, I liked the way we competed against each other, it was just fair play and both teams wanted to play. That's once in a while nice to experience.