Does Arne Slot watch Liverpool? His poor excuse is just wrong

Arne Slot has long said some strange things about his Liverpool team. The latest is just plain wrong.

Another Liverpool match, another disappointing performance. The Reds were magnificent in midweek against Galatasaray but have followed that with a Premier League defeat.

A deserved one, too. The Reds were second-best at Brighton and in no way deserved to get anything from the game.

Arne Slot does have some reasons to be aggrieved, though. Hugo Ekitike's early injury left the team without a goalscorer, given both Alexander Isak and Mo Salah were already out.

That was always going to make things difficult. Still, it does often feel that if anything goes wrong for Liverpool, they have no way of rectifying it and will suffer a negative result.

At the very least, it's an attitude about the team right now that doesn't really add up. Yes, injuries make life very difficult - but Liverpool should still be able to compete. They shouldn't suddenly become a terrible team, not after that gigantic summer spend.

But one of Slot's go-tos after poor results highlights this attitude. It's a near-excuse that doesn't make any sense.

Arne Slot on opposition goals

Slot analysed the defeat in his press conference after the match and made an observation that he's made a few times this season.

"What happened a lot this season is also that the first chance of the other team immediately went in,” he said. Now, that’s true but removing the context removes the point.

It paints a picture of Liverpool being unlucky, with opponents taking their first chance and changing the game when they’d have typically missed it. That would be a fair assessment if the chances were similar to Liverpool’s. But they’re not.

Take Brighton’s opener. Suggesting that it would have been missed on another day and led to a different game completely ignores what the chance was. It was a point-blank header from a striker. Danny Welbeck was never missing that.

Slot said similar after the defeat at Galatasaray. Once again, the goal was a point-blank header that was never going to be missed.

So no, the problem here isn’t misfortune at opponents taking their very first chance. The problem is that teams’ first chance against Liverpool is typically a very, very good one.

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