Tribal Football

Liverpool boss Slot talks up Salah - and Briggs - after winning at Man City

Paul Vegas
Liverpool boss Slot talks up Salah - and Briggs - after winning at Man City
Liverpool boss Slot talks up Salah - and Briggs - after winning at Man CityAction Plus
Liverpool boss Arne Slot was keen to highlight coach Aaron Briggs after their opener in victory at Manchester City.

Mohamed Salah struck first from a well-rehearsed corner, with Slot keen to highlight Briggs' work on set-pieces.

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He said: "He has done his work very, very, very well and you don’t always see the result of that during games because many times we were close to scoring. I always say, people might not know it over here yet, but if you go to Holland then people say, ‘There he is again about his set-pieces.’

"But if you want to win a big game then you need to have a neutral balance in set-pieces or a positive one. So, if we go to Villa away and they score (from a set-piece) and we don’t, it is so hard to win against a Villa or a Chelsea or an Arsenal.

"And today it was the opposite: we scored from a set-piece and that gives you such a boost for this game because, at that moment of time, it wasn’t that we were dominating the game. It wasn’t expected that we could score at any second, so yeah, set-pieces are vital.

"We started with a new group of people this season and we need to give them a bit of time because I think – that’s also what you see at Arsenal, when they started working it wasn’t immediate, it takes a bit of time before you see the result – and that’s what we’re hoping for in the upcoming 11  as well."

On Salah, Slot also said after the 2-0 win:  "That’s been asked many times and it is difficult. I think the numbers speak for themselves. What pleased me most today is that mostly we have – in every game apart from this one I think, and maybe the home game against City or Chelsea – more ball possession so that means we bring him many, many, many times in promising positions.

"But today there wasn’t that many moments we could bring him in promising positions, but these seven, eight, nine or 10 moments that we gave him the ball in those positions he was every time a threat and that probably tells you even more the quality player he is, because it’s not so easy for an attacker if he has to defend, defend, defend. And then he gets the ball and does something special, that’s sometimes difficult but at the moment not many things seem difficult for Mo."