Arne Slot spoke about another defeat on the road for Liverpool against Aston Villa.
A straight shootout for fourth position in the Premier League appears to have gone the way of the Villans, who ticked up to 62 points with a 4-2 win at Villa Park. They have ended their schedule on home soil in the best way possible, sealing Champions League qualification, but that target remains unachieved for the reigning champions, who also are sporting an abysmal record from away days.
‘You’re responsible if things happen time and again’
Without an away win in their eight fixtures against the top nine in the league, their drop-off is well documented. Set pieces and individual mistakes were their undoing, and Slot had to face the music.
“Damaging because we needed either a win or maybe, maybe, maybe two draws would have been enough as well. But now we know one thing for sure – that we need a win next week if we have to do it ourselves. As we all know, other teams, of course, need to pick up points as well for us to need a win. So that's really damaging that we were not able to get a result, let alone a win here today.
“There were parts in the game where I felt a result could have gone our way. But I think what people are mainly focused on is the period after the 2-1 where we couldn't find any momentum anymore and we conceded two other goals. That was the most difficult period in the game.
“It's frustrating because as a manager you're also responsible for if things happen time and time again. You are hired to try to prevent that for the next time. We scored two set-pieces over here, so usually you think if you go to an away game or any game where you score two set-pieces, usually you're quite sure of a result – unless you concede three set-pieces, what we did.
*“Against Manchester United, against Chelsea, in this game again, we have a negative balance in set-pieces and that makes it really hard if you play against equal teams – which United, Chelsea and Villa are – to win a game of football, and again that was shown today.*
“And the manner, of course, in which we conceded the 2-1, I think we've thought we've seen a lot this season – this one we haven't. But, of course, Dominik Szoboszlai has had and has a very good season and he doesn't do it on purpose and he's the first one who feels [bad] about it. But it happens and then afterwards we really, really, really struggled to find any momentum again.
“I can understand at this moment in time that they don't have a lot of confidence or a lot of feeling that things can be much better next season, but I think they are then underestimating what a window can do, what a new start can do.
“We know quite well what to improve; one of the things we also have to improve is also very, very obvious and I would have preferred not to talk about it here, but you're actually almost forcing me to.
*“If you miss nine players that can start a game of football and almost all of them are starters for us, or have been for large parts of the season starters for us, then if you add that to what you can improve in a window and add that to players that are playing for the second season in the Premier League.*
“We saw the adaptation to the Premier League for a few of them took some time, but that's now better and better – that will automatically lead to much more, but that's my opinion and no-one has to agree with me.
“Even today, for large parts of the game we were close to a result but then when you are the better team you need to generate more chances, and if you have the chances you need to score them. We cannot concede as many set-pieces as we've conceded this season. I don't think the difference is so big, only doing in a few situations the right thing can already have a massive upwards possibility.”