Arne Slot and Virgil van Dijk offered contrasting explanations after Liverpool slipped to three straight defeats. The run began with a late loss away to Crystal Palace and continued with a 1\u20130 defeat to Galatasaray in the Champions League midweek.<\/p>\n
Slot framed the sequence as the product of marginal moments rather than a deeper malaise. \u201cLast season we lost against Chelsea as well,\u201d the Dutch boss pointed out to Sky Sports. \u201cStamford Bridge is always difficult. We were very close to a result. Small margins. As I said at Galatasaray, we had a one-vs.-one then they get a penalty. We concede in extra, extra time against Palace. And then today they score a goal that could go at either end.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we scored 1\u20131 it went our way and I think I was waiting for us to score the second. Decision-making could\u2019ve been better, last 10\u201315 minutes was end-to-end. We arrived in their 18-yard box with [Andy] Robertson, we couldn\u2019t control the ball but again it\u2019s fine margins like it\u2019s been for as long as I\u2019ve been here.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week, same as this week two difficult away games, the fine margins haven\u2019t been in our favour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The manager noted that, after a Community Shield shootout loss to begin the season, his side had strung together seven straight wins before this spell. Six of those victories were by a single-goal margin and club figures admitted Liverpool had not always looked at their best in those matches.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk took a different tack, pointing to the mental burden the squad has carried this year. \u201cIt was always going to be a difficult season,\u201d the captain said. \u201cIt\u2019s not only because of what happens on the pitch, but also because of what has happened off it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preseason was overshadowed by the tragic passing of Diogo Jota. That loss followed months after a car driving into a crowd of fans during the Premier League trophy parade; there were mercifully no casualties.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s forward play has lacked fluency at times despite a record-breaking outlay on a new-look frontline, and defensive concerns have been highlighted by statistics showing newly promoted Sunderland have conceded three fewer goals than the Merseysiders while Manchester United have faced fewer shots.<\/p>\n
Van Dijk concluded with a call for unity: \u201cWe have to go through this as one. Not only us as players but also the staff and our fans who celebrated with us being champions, which is something we shouldn\u2019t forget.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe past week has been tough but we can turn this around. It is down to us to find consistency. So much noise is going on and you have to deal with that as well. It is down to us to keep working, find results, stick together, and find confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot: small margins blamed for three losses; Van Dijk: off-field events weigh; squad urged to unite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969],"tags":[220,299,239],"class_list":["post-3570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-andy-robertson","tag-arne-slot","tag-diogo-jota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}