Arne Slot’s Liverpool had one of those halves on Sunday at Anfield, but the Reds didn’t let it cost them a win in what’s surely a Premier League title-winning campaign.
The Reds led 1-0 early as Mohamed Salah celebrated his early contract with an assist to Luis Diaz, but they emerged from the halftime meeting a different team and not in a good way.
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RECAP — Liverpool 2-1 West Ham United
West Ham United were far and away the better team but denied by Alisson Becker’s heroics for most of the second 45.
And Virgil van Dijk appeared to be set for lowercase goat status when he contributed to Andy Robertson own goal. But the big Dutchman turned hero from that point, as Liverpool won 2-1 off his header.
How will Arne Slot view the day?
Slot did not feel the added time was appropriate after Liverpool retook the lead in the 89th minute.
“I think there were six or seven minutes, where I wasn’t that composed. Scoring a goal in the final stages of the game and still seven minutes to go. I like referees who give a lot of extra-time, especially if the other team is time-wasting. But we did not do this for one second and there were seven minutes extra. So the boys had to fight very hard and I tried, like the fans, everything I could do to fire them up from the side. We survived, because they had a header on the bar in extra-time.”
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On the team’s readiness to rebound from Fulham loss: “That is what we’ve done the whole season. After the disappointment of being knocked out by PSG, we show up again, show up every three days, with this mentality. We don’t win games the easy way. The easy way is taking control of the ball, pass it around five times and we have a goal and the next goal and the next goal. If we achieve something this year, it’s mainly to do with the mentality the players have shown. That’s what you saw today as well.”
On Alisson’s strong game: “Very difficult second half, we needed Alisson because Paqueta and Kudus were incredible the whole game. And then we conceded the 1-1, with an own goal. How much more disappointment can you get after what happened last week?
Putting things in perspective: “The whole season has been hard for us, every win has been really difficult except two more wins. The last three games have shown us how difficult it is to win a game of football, let alone one at the end of the season. We go again next week against Leicester.”
