However, Slot did acknowledge one glaring weakness in his defensive setup, which is Liverpool’s recurring problems from set-pieces. Reflecting on their recent defeats to Brentford and Manchester United, he admitted his players lacked physicality and concentration at key moments.
“It is never helpful if you end a game of football against Man Utd with conceding a set-piece, and you start another one in the Premier League, and you concede a throw-in after five minutes,” he said.
“I’m not 100% if I’m correct, but we had to defend 16 set-pieces [against Brentford], and 15 we defended well, but at this moment, 15 isn’t enough because we conceded 16. The first one, someone said to me, no player survives the first contact, and that is also a little bit what makes it difficult if you are five minutes in and 1-0 down. That is never helpful for confidence and for the plan you had, but like I said, if I liked a little part of the game, it was the part after we conceded 1-0 because we were creative, we created our chances, but we couldn’t score, and in the last 10 minutes, it became more of their game again. Eventually, the way we conceded the 2-0 – that is something that is far from our standards.”