Arne Slot pushed back on criticism of Mohamed Salah while acknowledging Liverpool must improve their defensive work on crosses.<\/p>\n
Slot pointed to the sequence that decided the match, when Cucurella burst into the box to provide the low cross for Est\u00eav\u00e3o\u2019s stoppage-time winner. He highlighted that Salah\u2019s willingness to let Cucurella run off him was compounded by the forward\u2019s profligacy at Stamford Bridge, where Salah \u201cspurned several clear chances to fire the visitors in front after drawing level in the second half.\u201d Slot argued the opportunities Salah had emerged because of the forward\u2019s limited defensive duties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw Cucurella\u2019s comments on Salah but I show you five or six moments where Mo could have made the difference, so that would be a different conversation,\u201d the Liverpool boss snapped at Friday\u2019s press conference. \u201cAlways the balance between winger and fullback that is quite… I want ours to attack as well. We have to find the right balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time Slot accepted a clear problem: \u201cWe concede too many crosses, I am aware of that and we have to do better.\u201d Opponents are averaging 2.3 open-play crosses into Liverpool\u2019s penalty area each game this season, up from 1.3 last season. That rise in deliveries into the box has coincided with a tendency to concede goals at the back post; only three Premier League teams have shipped more goals from that specific scenario than Liverpool this season, per The Athletic.<\/p>\n
Slot also addressed the club\u2019s run of three straight defeats, which he called the longest losing streak of his managerial career. He asked for context while accepting responsibility. \u201cWe have lost three [games] by very close margins,\u201d he argued. \u201cTwice in last minute, one was penalty, we should have overturned it on VAR. We should not depend on the margins, Chelsea away is normal it is an equal game, part of it, but results don\u2019t lie. If you lose three in a row you have to do better.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese players don\u2019t wake up at night with it but we have to be aware of it and give a reaction. We have to create habits if we win or lose but after three losses you hope for a spark or 1% or 2% more from us and our fans on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot defended Mohamed Salah after criticism, called for better protection against crosses into box..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969],"tags":[299,1100],"class_list":["post-3851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-arne-slot","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3851","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=3851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}