Arne Slot on “Disappointing” Result at Crystal Palace

Liverpool earned their first loss of the season after an uneven performance at Selhurst Park. There was a lot to be disappointed about from a Liverpool perspective, from some shocking lapses to the defense being caught out again from set piece plays. It was certainly an afternoon to forget.

For head coach Arne Slot, the entire first half was as disappointing as conceding the late winner. In his post-match press conference, the Dutchman provided an assessment that equated those phases of the game as the lowlights as a team. It’s tough to argue you with him, in truth – I even wrote extensively about the tactical gambles in that first half – and those two phases do feel like when Liverpool did drop the points.

Slot’s assessment after the match is quite telling, though. To hear from him, you could tell mistakes were made.

“A disappointing first half and a disappointing end of the game. Again, once again, credit to Palace because, one of them was the Community Shield, but it’s not the first time we lose against them, although the first time was on penalties. We have played each other four times since I’m here – we have both won once, twice it was a draw, although the penalties they won. It tells you how difficult it is for us – but not only for us, for every team in the league – to beat them. That’s what we could see today. They deserved to be up two or three goals in the first half; created three, four very good chances and we were lucky that Alisson [Becker] helped us. I think the second half was a much better performance from us. We created chances, which not many teams do here or if Palace play away. It’s very hard to create a chance. We created quite a lot. It took a while for us to score a goal. And when we did, [there was] limited time to play. And to concede another set-piece goal is then as disappointing as our first half was.”

That all feels straightforward enough and honest to the way the match played out. Palace do deserve a lot of credit for the way they executed Oliver Glasner’s gameplan and the fact that Alisson was largely responsible for ensuring Liverpool were even in a position to grasp at points out of this fixture.

But perhaps the most telling, in a pointed but subtextual drop, was who Slot singled out when addressing the the long-throw that led to Palace’s winner. Responding to a question about whether he had the team pressing for a winner after getting to 1-1, Slot did point to one player – without naming them – who he felt had dropped their focus by shifting into attack while the rest of the team were clearly defending.

“We had a lot of attacking players in our line-up at that moment of time, but I don’t think many things happened in the extra time. It was, by the way, the extra time of the extra time when we conceded, which I think was fair because they made a substitution so then you add half a minute extra. I don’t know exactly when they scored but I assume that was between 96 and 96:30. Then we can only blame ourselves by defending it the way we did. One of our players decided to run out because he wanted to play a counter-attack, which was of no use because time was up so it was only about defending. Maybe we were too offensively minded. Not we, one player, was too offensively minded in that moment, which led to them scoring the winner, us losing the game.”

Watching the replay, I can confirm that player was Cody Gakpo, who vacated a space low and close-ish to the area where Marc Guehi eventually flicked a header to match winner Eddie Nketiah. There’s no guarantee Gakpo gets to the spot to stop the ball, but looking at his starting place, it’s hard not to see Slot’s point: had the winger stayed home and defended, it’s possible this doesn’t play out this way.

It adds an interesting wrinkle to the analysis of the match: the team looked decidedly better with Gakpo in the match and, ostensibly, on the flank. It’s interesting that Slot doesn’t feel you can get the same type of production from Florian Wirtz in that space as Gakpo, but also telling that Slot felt the Dutch international was the attacker that should make room in order to keep Wirtz in the side.

It’s undeniable that both players contributed to the period of the match where Liverpool looked their most dangerous. It is also true, though, that the manager’s assessment is that Gakpo carries the bulk of the blame for allowing the winner in this match.

Perhaps a harsh assessment but given that Liverpool have been caught out regularly on set pieces, it’s good to have some sense of how the squad is approaching them as a unit. Here’s hoping they can knock out the mental lapses – like today – but also identify any underlying structural things preventing the team from looking as defensively stable as last season’s team.

A bright spot to close, though, is this little piece from Slot in response to questions about set piece defending.

“No, against Newcastle we conceded two set-pieces and they were the only two chances they might have had in that game. Today, they had more than only two set-piece goals. They didn’t score more, but they had chances from open play, from transition. So, there were more things not to like today than only defending set-pieces. The good thing was that in the other moments Alisson saved us. Palace have a few threats. Set-pieces are one of them but counter-attacks and balls in behind are number two and three, and from all these situations they’ve created a lot of chances. What I said, we were able to create quite a lot against a Palace team which hardly ever concedes a chance, but when you look at the first half they totally deserved to win. In the second half I think it was a much better performance from us. If one team deserved to win today, I think it was Palace.”

It’s worth noting that from the start of the second half up until about the 92nd minute, Liverpool looked not only the one most likely to score, but also quite capable of hanging a few on Palace – the second-best defense in the whole league in this early season. Wirtz had a terrific effort saved, Isak and Gravenberch put decent chances just wide. This is a game of inches and the results can be cruel, but Liverpool weren’t abject for the entire game and did turn the tables on a defensive stalwart.

Which is promising because Slot and Co. know that they’ll be facing the low-block against almost every non-title challenging opponent (plus Arsenal) this year. It’s why we’ve seen so many tactical tweaks and, I’d wager, a shift in the balance of the team, accepting a little more openness in service of creating more chances.

It’s why I look back at this match and am much more accepting of the loss on its own terms: Slot experimenting against a formidable defense and, very nearly, figuring out the combination to completely unlock it. I’ll take progress as we seek to rebuild and adapt. Especially since we’ve managed to bring home the results in every other fixture this season. Onward and upward, then.