Slot Talk: On Liverpool's Recent Defensive Frailties
Today at 02:00 PM
Liverpool started shipping goals — should we be worried?
Liverpool shipped 12 goals in their last seven league games, during a period where the Reds dropped four points. This number is worrying, since Arne Slot's side conceded just eight in their first 13 league matches.
Though his side have collected the joint-most points from losing positions (14 points, even with Manchester City), head coach Arne Slot was nonetheless asked to discuss the side's lack of clean sheets in his pre-Brentford press conference:
Not as many [clean sheets] as we did before. I wouldn't say it's a concern but it's also not what we want because it was one of our strengths also at the beginning of the season that we kept a lot of clean sheets. But it's every time the same what I am saying now – so, we have talked about the strikers or the attackers sometimes having a bit of difficulties to score – I think if I look at the amount of chances we gave away in the last seven games and I look at how many chances we gave away in all the games before, I don't see much difference.
The only difference is that the teams we are facing at the moment – so, Forest for example, they had one serious shot on target and that was a goal. That is not normal in football and this has happened to us. United had maybe three good chances against us and scored two, Tottenham had hardly any chances apart from the one when where Ali [Alisson Becker] lost the ball and the one chance they had in the end they scored.
So, that is, like with strikers, sometimes a phase in the season where you hardly concede anything but still they score. I've said already, Crystal Palace away, that we beat 1-0, 10 minutes before the end they went one-v-one against Vit [Vitezslav Jaros] and that was a bigger chance maybe than some goals we have conceded recently. So, sometimes you are a bit lucky and sometimes your goalkeeper makes a great save. But like the amount of chances we create, we hardly concede a chance and that has been the same for the whole season, but when it comes to collecting points I also see a bit of a difference at the moment compared to the beginning of the season.
It has certainly been frustrating watching the Reds dominate with their initial game plan only to concede to an opposition's first chance, leaving aside any broader goals.
