Arne Slot said he faces a challenge to lift Liverpool after Manchester United triumphed at Anfield for the first time in more than nine years to inflict a fourth successive defeat on the faltering Premier League champions.
The Liverpool head coach blamed wastefulness in front of goal and more set-piece lapses from his team for their latest reverse, as Ruben Amorim savoured the first back-to-back league wins of his United reign.
Harry Maguire, whose 84th-minute header secured victory, admitted it was “embarrassing” that United had taken 51 games to achieve that statistic under Amorim.
Slot claimed it should not have been possible for Liverpool to lose a match in which they created so many clear chances. Cody Gakpo struck the woodwork three times and missed a gilt-edged opportunity to head home a second equaliser in the 87th minute. But having lost to Crystal Palace, Galatasaray, Chelsea and now United, the Dutch coach conceded he has a job on his hands to end Liverpool’s damaging run.
“As a manager you constantly face challenges,” said Slot. “When you start and you need to win games, when you go to a bigger club, when you are the successor of Jürgen Klopp and people are saying: ‘This is the biggest challenge you have ever faced.’ Now we have lost four times in a row and that is also a challenge. The life of a football manager is also an ongoing challenge.
“But do we lose confidence? I can not see that yet because every game we’ve lost we were able to create in the second half an unbelievable amount of chances. If we can keep producing what we are doing and maybe do a few things a little bit better, then there is every reason to expect that we will win football games again. Of course there is also the part that, apart from the two goals we conceded, we conceded maybe two or three more chances. This is constantly the struggle we have when we are 1-0 down, then you need to take a bit more of a risk.”
Slot felt the referee, Michael Oliver, should have stopped play before Bryan Mbeumo’s 62-second opener because of a head injury sustained by Alexis Mac Allister. The Liverpool midfielder required four stitches in a cut. But the head coach said: “The main thing I should do now is not complain at these kind of things. We should have done much better after Macca was on the floor but the health care of the players is important and if a player needs four stitches you would hope everyone understands he needed treatment. But we could have done better and that is not the reason we lost. The reason is we missed far too many chances to win a game of football.”
Amorim said United’s spirit and composure was key to victory at Anfield, particularly after Gakpo levelled for Liverpool late on, but insisted the finest result of his turbulent reign would not change any targets for the season.
The United head coach said: “I want you guys [the media] to continue with the narrative that you have so I will not increase the goal. What we need to do is try to win three games in a row now and forget about top four or top six. We already said we want to go to Europe. This doesn’t change nothing. We are the same team we were 90 minutes ago.”
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Maguire, however, described the win as “massive” for United as they finally secured two consecutive Premier League wins under the Portuguese coach. United’s match-winner said: “It’s embarrassing really. It’s not a stat that we should even be speaking about because it is an embarrassing stat to have.
“Now that’s out of the way let’s try and make it three [wins] on Saturday against Brighton, because we have to start putting a bit more consistency together. The last three or four years we’d put in a performance like this and the following game we come down again. We have set a bench mark, there are a lot of areas we can do more.
“The manager strives for perfection so I’m sure he will want us to play better than we did in the second half. Great fight, big spirit, big win, but again we have to go again.”