Mario Lemina\u2019s early header from a poorly defended corner proved the difference in a 1-0 first leg win on a hostile evening in Istanbul, where the Reds had lost by the same scoreline in September\u2019s league phase meeting.<\/p>\n
Things could have been worse for Liverpool as Galatasaray pushed to extend their advantage, yet the open nature of the encounter meant the visitors had chances to level or even take a win into next Wednesday\u2019s return fixture at Anfield.<\/p>\n
Head coach Slot said after his 100th match in charge: \u201cWe started the game really well, even better than three months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had three or four great moments. The biggest moment when Florian (Wirtz) came across almost an open goal, but he couldn\u2019t finish that ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t able to score and like last time, with their first attack it led to a corner and you have to give credit to the way when they get a chance they play as if it\u2019s the last chance of their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is definitely something we can learn from. We sometimes get our chances and it comes across as, like, we think we\u2019ll get 10 more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s already a difficult place to come to, but when you\u2019re 1-0 down it makes it even harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ibrahima Konate saw an equaliser ruled out by VAR Guillermo Cuadra Fernandez for handball during a scrum at a second-half corner and Slot does \u201cnot think it\u2019s possible so many things can go against us\u201d as they have in their trips to Galatasaray.<\/p>\n
The Liverpool boss believes \u201cthings will be more normal in a home game for us\u201d after referee Jesus Gil Manzano\u2019s decision-making got under his skin in Turkey, where he felt the atmosphere influenced his performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always very difficult to talk to referees in a situation like that as they\u2019re in communication with VAR so have to listen to what is being said,\u201d Slot said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf, if, if it\u2019s correct that the goal was disallowed, which is difficult to judge as I\u2019ve heard different opinions from people, it\u2019s not completely obvious but let\u2019s say that decision is right.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I was even more frustrated about the fact that every free-kick and corner we took if we only look at Galatasaray players the referee already gave a free-kick for Galatasaray.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you then look at how much they pulled on Virgil\u2019s (van Dijk) shirt before the ball hit Ibou\u2019s arm, then it\u2019s safe to say we weren\u2019t the only ones impressed by the atmosphere here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot added: \u201cIn the Premier League there is much more allowed than in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I was so surprised it wasn\u2019t a penalty because in all the other incidents where he thought he saw something when we made a foul and was so fast to blow his whistle and give Galatasaray a free-kick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it\u2019s really, really, really surprising the same referee in another incident when they make the foul says he is going to accept this completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you look overall at the 90 minutes, I don\u2019t think I can be surprised by that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mario Lemina\u2019s early header from a poorly defended corner proved the difference in a 1-0 first leg win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,5859,112],"class_list":["post-339887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liverpool-football-club","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}