Slot on stuttering Liverpool's fourth loss on the bounce after Utd's 2-1 win

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Slot on stuttering Liverpool's fourth loss on the bounce after Utd's 2-1 win  19/10/2025  Anfield, Liverpool, UK

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00:00Arnold, what did you make of that? What did you think went wrong today?

00:13The result? And the fact that we went 1-0 down so early, that makes it...

00:21I think if you play United, there are so many quality players they have brought in a few

00:27new ones this summer, and if they come to us in the low block playing so many long balls,

00:36then the last thing you would want is going 1-0 down, because that gives them even more

00:40belief and if you would have told me that we were 1-0 down against a United team that

00:46played in the style they did and you would have told me that we would have created 8-9-10

00:50open chances, then I would have said to you that I don't think that is possible. But it

00:56was possible. So the second thing that went wrong is that from all the chances we got,

01:00we only scored one goal. And I've said in Holland many times and maybe I've said it here as well,

01:08it's almost impossible to win a big game of football and United-Difficult is a big game

01:13with so many quality players on the pitch. To win it with a negative set-piece balance and

01:22we conceded another one and that led to us losing the game.

01:29Do you think that first goal should have stood with McAllister being down with a head injury?

01:36I think the main thing we should do now, I should do now is not complain, blame or do these

01:42kind of things. So the only thing I was at that moment of time, I think we could have done

01:49much better after Maka was on the floor, we should have done better. But the health care

01:57of a player is something that is important and if a player needs to have four stitches you

02:01would hope that everybody understands that he needs immediate treatment. But it didn't happen,

02:06but again we could have done better, so that's not the reason why we lost this game today.

02:10The reason is because we missed far too many chances to win a game of football. Again,

02:18I've said it here I think many times and I'm hoping that I'm not just saying it to you,

02:25but everybody understands this a bit better. We are not a team, which I see a lot in football,

02:31that go to the floor pretending if it's a head injury so they kill the counter-attack.

02:36That's not who we are. We never go to the floor, we always are a fair team.

02:41So if a player of us is then on the floor you would hope that everybody knows that it's Liverpool,

02:46they don't do these kind of things, so let's blow a whistle. But again, that's not an excuse

02:53for us conceding the goal and that's not an excuse for us losing this game of football.

02:58James?

02:59It's the first time in 11 years that we've lost four in a row.

03:02Are you worried about confidence levels in the squad?

03:05And for you personally, is this the biggest challenge we've faced as a manager this period?

03:10I think as a manager you face constantly challenges.

03:14So when I just started, you face the challenge of being a new manager

03:18and then you need to win games.

03:20Then when you do well, you go to a bigger club and people are like,

03:24let's see how he does over there, then you go being the successor of Jurgen Klopp

03:28and people say this is the biggest challenge you've ever faced.

03:31And now we've lost four times in a row and that's also a challenge.

03:36So the life of a football manager is an ongoing challenge.

03:40If you win games you want to keep winning, if you lose games you want to start winning again.

03:44So do we lose confidence? I cannot see it yet because every single game we've lost

03:51we were able to create in the second half an unbelievable amount of chances.

03:57So if you look back at all the three games we've lost in the Premier League,

04:01I don't think if you just put all the highlights behind each other you would say

04:05it's hardly possible that they lose this game.

04:10So if we can keep producing what we are doing and do a few things a little bit better

04:15then there's every reason to expect that we start to win football games again.

04:19But I cannot promise you that Wednesday evening we are again able to create eight,

04:23nine or ten open chances.

04:26I hope so.

04:27And with the players we have then it will lead in the end to us scoring more goals.

04:32And then there's of course the part which no one asked about but I can tell you that

04:36of course apart from the two goals we conceded we've conceded maybe two or three more chances.

04:42But this is the struggle we are constantly having being 1-0 now.

04:45Then you need to take a bit more risk.

04:47And then I am even quite positive that we limit the opponent so much to the chances they are creating.

04:54Because we do take a lot of risk.

04:56In the moment after 55 minutes I think we had six or seven offensive players on the pitch.

05:03And that might also maybe not be an excuse but maybe the reason why the structure in defending a set-piece

05:12against Palace and now was not as perfect as we usually are.

05:17Because normally you play with four, five, six defensive-minded players.

05:21But at that moment of time we are on the pitch with seven or eight offensive-minded players.

05:26And that's not an excuse because they should do better, we should do better.

05:30But maybe it's not a coincidence that exactly in those moments of time we conceded a set-piece.

05:39Charlie, Cody alone did woodwork for your time and obviously misses that chance at the end.

05:45So do you think it's just small margins away from hitting the levels of consistency that you enjoyed last?

05:52And scored a goal. Cody, and scored a goal.

05:57And with multiple moments because we only focused on the open chances we had.

06:02But I saw crosses coming in close to being a chance.

06:07Yeah, if you win you can say the margins are small and people believe you.

06:12They say, yeah, but you are still winning.

06:14And if you say it now people are like, yeah, that's not an excuse we would like to hear.

06:17But Harry Maguire had maybe an even better chance last season at 2-2 over here that he missed.

06:23And now he scored.

06:25And after that we had, yeah, the Cody chance is, apart from all the others,

06:31it was maybe not his biggest one because the goal he scored was his biggest one.

06:37Almost hit the woodwork by the way.

06:40But, yeah, at this moment of time I think it's the margins you are talking about.

06:47But we soon have to prove that we can do better than what we are doing at the moment.

06:54Based on the performances, are you confident that this is just the recent performances

07:01to blip rather than anything more serious to worry about?

07:04That depends on if we can keep bringing these performances in.

07:08And as we all know in football, if you start to lose a game of football,

07:13one, two, then three, then four, you always find the same challenges.

07:18Players that maybe thought they had to play longer or didn't deserve to go out

07:23or all these kind of things.

07:25And in the meantime, we as a team still have to keep on going.

07:29And that's for me very positive at the moment because if I look at the players who start

07:34are able to create a lot.

07:35If players come in, they come in with the right energy.

07:38If the players go out, they are behind me hoping that the Maguire goal

07:43would have been fractionally offside trying to push their teammates to score the 2-2.

07:49So all these things are very positive, which is maybe also normal if you won the league last season.

07:56But we should keep doing this and that is something I cannot promise you

08:03that Wednesday evening we again will be able to create eight or nine open chances

08:08like we did against Palace and like we did today.

08:13But maybe it's a better idea to create less but score more.

08:17Do you think it's fair to say it's a different start for more as well?

08:26I think it's quite normal.

08:28The first five or six games it was every question I got were about the new players.

08:32Now you asked me about another individual.

08:35I don't think it's the time to talk about individual performances.

08:40But as a team we expect more than where we are at the moment.

08:45And as a team I don't think we are used to a Liverpool team.

08:49Certainly as long as I'm here and I don't think it was any different when Jürgen was here

08:53that we are missing so many chances.

08:57But yeah, like I said Mo had a good chance today.

09:02But we just talked about Cody who had four or five maybe.

09:05Hugo Iquitike was a few times really close.

09:08Alexander Iczak went one-on-one to the goalkeeper in the first half.

09:11We had ten corner kicks I think, they only had four.

09:15We don't score, they score.

09:17So this weekend again as it's shown so many times recently

09:22that set pieces are such a crucial part in football.

09:26You play the game of football open play.

09:28I said it in the press conference on Friday I think.

09:32We are the team that creates the most out of open play.

09:34I don't think that has changed after today.

09:37Because all of our chances came from open play.

09:41But that's not the only way to win a game of football.

09:46That's what United showed today and what other teams showed this weekend as well.

09:51I think Chelsea scored three set pieces.

09:53Winning three now.

09:54Chris from what's on?

09:56Is Ryan an injury concern?

09:58Because he seems to try to play off.

10:00Yeah, I took him off because he twisted his ankle.

10:03Is he an injury concern?

10:07That's what we have to wait and see tomorrow.

10:09But we have to play in two days again.

10:11Because again we have to play three games in seven days.

10:14Like we had to do after the last international break.

10:18So there's not a lot of time for players to recover.

10:21But the good thing is we have more than one good midfielder.

10:28That is my compliment.

10:29Thank us.

10:40The present is a virtual meeting for us.

10:44Please, please, tell me what you're going into going into the Presenter Council.

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