Slot believes Liverpool ‘took control of the game from the start’ in win over Milan | OneFootball

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot got the perfect birthday present on Tuesday night as his side dominated AC Milan in a 3-1 victory at San Siro, and he gave his assessment on how the game was won.

Milan’s European campaign got off to the worst possible start as they were not only beaten by Liverpool (again, after they did the double in 2021-22) but ultimately dominated, as the Reds had over 20 shots and far more big chances.

The 3-1 scoreline eradicates all of the momentum that might have been built from the 4-0 home win over Venezia on Saturday and it is certainly not the ideal result to go into the derby with, given Paulo Fonseca and the players are now under a lot of pressure after leaving the field to boos.

Slot spoke to reporters in the press conference room at San Siro immediately after the game and shared his thoughts on what was a job well done for his side, with the official website relaying his comments.

Is it a good birthday present?

“Yeah. I said a few times already, normally you celebrate your birthday with your friends and your family. But this was a real good alternative to play a first Champions League game against a special club for Liverpool, but also a special club for Dutch people in a nice venue.

“Then to win it the way we did after going 1-0 down after five minutes with the result of Nottingham Forest still in our head. I think it was very good to see how they took the game in their hands the players and in the end we scored three goals and won 3-1.”

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Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch stood out in particular…

“I was standing just a second ago next to Clarence Seedorf on the desk. They also talked about Ryan and Cody and I said it’s a special place for Dutch players to play because of the former players that have played here.

“To put a performance in like this is always nice as a Liverpool player and at a venue like this it’s even nicer. Yes, you can pick these two, but I think I could pick a few others as well that played really well.

“Like always, it’s very difficult for an individual to play well if the whole team doesn’t play well and vice versa. The whole team played well and then the individuals can shine from there.”

You are the fourth manager to win a Champions League tie on your birthday, after Bobby Robson, Roberto Mancini and Arsene Wenger…

“It’s pretty good company but I hope to do more special things in the future and be in the special company of these legends of the game instead of only winning a tie on your birthday. Hopefully in the future I’m also trying to manage certain things what these managers did. This was not the most important thing to get.”

Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

Were set-pieces somewhere you felt you could hurt Milan?

“I don’t look at the other team, I always look at my own team. I think we were a bit disappointed with the result against Nottingham Forest [but] we were also disappointed from getting eight corner kicks and not scoring, but we were very close. We felt with all the work we put in on set-pieces that at some moment we should get the reward.

“I think [it was] two very good set-pieces and two very good headers that got us two goals, which was important because I think we were very comfortable on the ball, pressed really well, but in the end you need goals as well.

“We hit the crossbar a few times today out of open play, so we needed set-pieces and it was good to see that we scored them for all the work my assistants and the players put in. It is nice to see it got rewarded today.”

It was a difficult start to the game, conceding early…

“It sounds a bit weird if you play three, four, five minutes and we already conceded one chance, which was offside, and then afterwards you concede a goal [and] that I’m going to tell you now that we didn’t even start bad.

“I think we took control of the game from the start. But in the first five minutes we also lost the ball from two choices that were not the best to make and then they could counter-attack us. Afterwards we dominated possession even more and that didn’t lead to counter-attacks from them.

“Although it sounds weird to say that we started well if you concede two chances, but we took control of the ball from the start of the game. Except from the first five minutes where they had two counter-attacks, I think we dominated possession and created chances as well.”