ReactionPress conference: Arne Slot's assessment of Brighton 3-2 Liverpool
Arne Slot was pleased on the whole with Liverpool's performance in their 3-2 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday night, a game he described as a 'joy to watch'.
The Premier League champions' final away fixture of the season ended in a reversal at Amex Stadium following a second-half fightback from the hosts.
Efforts from Harvey Elliott and Dominik Szoboszlai had the Reds 2-1 ahead at the break, with a Yasin Ayari equaliser sandwiched in between.
But substitutes Kaoru Mitoma and Jack Hinshelwood made swift impacts with goals later on in the clash, the latter scoring the winner with 85 minutes on the clock after a VAR intervention.
Read on for a summary of Slot's post-match press conference…
On the game...
A great game of football. Two teams that wanted to play, two teams that wanted to win, had no intentions to do things that people normally don't like to see if they watch a game of football, so no time-wasting, no tumbling. Two teams that were just for almost 100 minutes trying to win a game of football and with some brilliant individual moments. I've seen a few from us but the lead-up to the 2-2, the ball from the goalkeeper towards that midfielder that pretended to play the ball to the outside and then played [to] his midfielder was a great moment from them, and then the lead-up to the 3-2, the way Mitoma bounced that ball behind his standing leg towards the midfielder that came underneath him. [They] were from their perspective great moments, and I think there were many of those moments during the whole game from both sides. So, [a] joy to watch, unfortunately not with the result we wanted.
On Federico Chiesa playing as a No.9 and making his first Premier League start…
I think the biggest quality Federico has is scoring goals. So the more you get him in and around the box, the bigger chance it is for him to score a goal. He got a good chance just before Mo [Salah] had his big chance. Mo assisted to Federico and for him to have an open shot from the 18-yard box is for Federico a very good chance because he's such a great finisher. But [it was] well defended by [Jan Paul] van Hecke, who blocked that ball. I think he did even more than I could expect from him. Because if you haven't played throughout the whole season, hardly ever had any starts, and then to play Brighton away – which is a very good team, No.8 of the league that can bring in Mitoma 20 minutes before the end, that tells you everything about this league – and then for him to be out for so long and play a game like this is more than I could expect from him.
On whether he learned 'much more about his players'...
I wouldn't say more, because if you work with them for 10 months it would be a bit strange if you learn new things after 10 months. But for me, I think I saw many things that I already knew and one of them is how close the margins have been throughout our whole season. And now with us failing to score the third, with us just missing maybe this two or three per cent sometimes in our defensive work, immediately it leads to us losing games of football – although I know it's against Chelsea, I know it's against Brighton and I know we didn't lose against Arsenal but I know it's against Arsenal.
But we won this league because we've been so consistent, we've done so many things right, but we haven't won it in a way like [Manchester] City did it for the last four seasons where they just could close the eyes and they were even 4-0 up. We've been very close in terms of quality with all the teams we've competed with. That's why it's also such a big compliment that we won this league by such a big margin, because the quality margins are not so much different between us and some other teams, so that's why it's such a big compliment – especially because we've had our injuries throughout the season as well. To lead by 12 now is a big compliment to our players.
On Salah coming close to scoring...
The first thought that goes through my head when I see a ball moving towards Mo, I am like, 'It's a quite big chance, this could lead to a goal' because that's what Mo normally does. He has been throughout this season almost un-human, but there were moments in the season where he was human. So, it's not the first time that he is not scoring for one or two games in a row, but the good thing for us is that this hardly ever happens and if it happens you can be sure he will score in either the third or fourth game again.
On whether Szoboszlai meant his goal...
What I liked a lot is that we mostly have a certain routine in our set-pieces but we tried to tell them if you see something else, try to execute it. Feel free to execute if you feel there is another opportunity. I think Harvey and Dom felt it was a two-v-one at that free-kick and they outplayed that. Then, I definitely feel Dom meant to shoot that ball on target because he has a great shot and we ask him, 'Use it more, use it more, use it more' because in training sessions he scores from every angle. But if he is playing he is always looking where is Mo, which is not always a bad idea because Mo can score a goal as well. I don't know how many goals he has now, but it is getting better and better for an attacking midfielder for Liverpool to have this amount of goals.