By LEWIS STEELE
Published: 16:13 EST, 10 December 2024 | Updated: 16:33 EST, 10 December 2024
An angry Arne Slot on Tuesday night fumed that he was ‘far from pleased’ with his team despite Liverpool beating Girona to make it six from six in Europe.
A Mohamed Salah penalty in the second half kept up the Reds’ 100 per cent record in the Champions League to all but secure their passage to the knockout stages.
But Slot did not like his side’s performance and said: ‘If you ask me about all the six games, I’m really pleased with all the results. I’m really pleased with the first five games, but I’m far from pleased about the performance tonight.
‘What wasn’t I pleased about? I wasn’t pleased with a lot. If you play against a team that has such a good idea about football and knows how to bring the ball out from the back like some of the teams we’ve played recently such as Real Madrid and Manchester City, you need to be so intense if you want to make it difficult for them.
‘But if you are waiting a few seconds to press them then this team can cause you a lot of problems. I almost feel sorry for them as they deserve so much more.
‘We have an incredible goalkeeper. But the other thing is every time we lost the ball, we were not aggressive enough and they could go almost all the way to our goal and have a shot.
Arne Slot was unwilling for his side to rest on their laurels after sneaking past Girona away
Returning No1 Alisson was forced to work hard by Girona's probing attack as the visitors saw out a narrow escape in Spain
‘We had hardly any control at all over the game. Maybe the second half was a bit better – I’m trying to be positive.’
Slot also hailed returning No 1 Alisson but joked that his subpar team were allowing Girona to run through and test the Brazilian’s true fitness.
‘I said as a joke that maybe players wanted to see how fit he really was, so to give him so much work,’ he said.
‘He showed again today why I said so many times that he is our first goalkeeper, that has nothing to do with Caoimhin (Kelleher) — he did so so well — but Alisson has been so important for this club for so many years.
‘He and showed today why he is one of the best — or in my opinion the best — in the world and let’s hope he can keep on putting these performances in and even more that he can stay fit.’
Andy Robertson praised match-winner Salah and said: ‘I think he has played better than he did tonight, most of us have, but when we needed him he stepped up.
‘Six wins out of six, you can't ask for much better than that. It's not easy to do or else more teams would be doing it. We weren't at our best tonight, we have played better.’