Liverpool are finally back in the win column with a professional 2-nil victory over Aston Villa on Saturday. I wouldn’t say it was free flowing, but being able to find the back of the net and control the game
in such a way as to blunt your opponent, I’ll definitely take it as an overwhelmingly positive result. Especially in light of so many performances where one might be justified in wondering if the team were ever going to get back to looking like something resembling a championship-caliber squad.
We’re not quite there yet, but the match gave us not just signs of life, but the hope that this squad can finally turn the corner in terms of integrating the new signings into the squad. For his part, Arne Slot felt quire good and saw positives in the result. He was also quick to note, though, that he sees a lot of room yet for growth
“Happy with the result, with the performance and what I saw today, not only from the players but also the support we got from the fans, was what we needed today. Maybe we were a bit more on the lucky side than we’ve been in the last few weeks, where in my opinion we were also unlucky. So, the mistake of their goalkeeper and the deflection led to two of our goals. These are the margins we are talking about. I think in other games we’ve created more from open play than we did today. But in football it’s about results, not about the chances you create from open play.”
It’s good to hear Slot’s take on the string of bad results. Because even though I wouldn’t argue that we deserved to win, a driver of the frustration I personally felt experiencing those matches was owed to the fact that I felt we deserved more. No, we didn’t deserve enough to win in those circumstances, but the losses felt quite harsh.
Slot also took time to mention the play of Conor Bradley and revealed that building connections within the squad would take time. Patience and flexible thinking, you’ve gotta love it.
“The more players play together, the better it will be. You cannot compare Trent [Alexander-Arnold] with Conor. But Conor played an outstanding game, like many others. I think the team performance is what made the difference today. Everyone was really fighting to get that win over the line, throwing themselves in front of shots, sprinting back when needed, being ready for a high press. So, there were a lot of positives to take – also from individual performances, like Conor’s. The challenge for him now is to make himself ready, because he’s not been used to 90 minutes a lot this season and after two days of rest the next one is coming up. So, we have to think about that as well. But for now, your question was, ‘Did he play well?’ Yes, he played well today.”
In the end, it was a relatively straightforward win, which I’m glad for given how rough the football has been for a little while now.
