Liverpool manager Arne Slot cut a dejected figure after watching his side hold on to a point for 94 minutes in their Premier League trip to Chelsea, only to lose it all in the 95th.
Moises Caicedo opened proceedings for the hosts, who then watched Cody Gakpo respond with a goal of his own. Then, Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca introduced teenage winger Estevao Willian in the 75th minute, and watched as he scored the winner for them in the 95th.
It was a second-straight defeat for the Reds, whose position at the top is looking very shaky heading into the international break.
Speaking after the events of the match, the Dutch tactician said: “Another disappointing loss. That’s clear. Another game similar to the Palace game, although the game was completely different because the playing styles of both teams are completely different.”
“But not similar to the Palace game, where in the first half I think we played not our best football but still were able to create three big chances. They’ve only had one, and they’ve immediately scored it, which was completely different from the Palace game.”
“We came a lot of times very close with chances but also with moments where we had four-versus-three in our favour, not outplaying it well enough in the last pass. And in the last 10 minutes, it was an end-to-end game, both teams could have won it. We didn’t and Chelsea did.”
“I think if you play the style we play – so a high press – and the style Chelsea plays – a high press – it would be a surprise if both teams, with the quality that both teams have, that they never play through your press, so that would be unrealistic.”
“You go here to Stamford Bridge with them having eight injuries, so you’re like, ‘This can be positive, then they probably don’t have the options from the bench.’ But they did still have a few good options from the bench to impact the game. So it would be unrealistic to expect that if you play Chelsea – they want to play out from the back – that they never play through your press, as we played through their press as well.”
Liverpool’s spending in the summer made headlines, and many posited that Slot was looking to build his own team and take away the nine-year identity that Jürgen Klopp had developed.
In his response to questions about the team becoming his, he said: “I think you are never close to your ideal. You have to work really hard to reach a certain level and then it’s very hard in football because you also play against very good teams to keep that level going and what I mean with that is consistency.”
“But it is clear we had our changes in the summer, players came in in different moments. Last week there’s hardly been any training time and still we need to try to bring these players in.”
“If the result would have been better today with a draw or a win – which was both possible, I don’t say we deserved it, a draw we definitely deserved – then we would have had a great start to the season if you take into account everything what happened in the summer at Liverpool.”
