Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Matt Verri

Liverpool: Arne Slot admits leaky defence a concern ahead of Premier League curtain-raiser

Things to improve: Arne Slot - (The FA via Getty Images)

Arne Slot admitted he is concerned by the number of goals Liverpool have conceded during pre-season.

The Reds twice led Crystal Palace in the Community Shield but were pegged back on each occasion, as Jean Philippe-Mateta's penalty cancelled out Hugo Ekitike's early opener before Ismaila Sarr sent it to a shootout after Jeremie Frimpong had restored Liverpool's lead.

Slot's side were beaten 4-2 by AC Milan last month and have not kept a clean sheet in any of the four matches since.

There were positives in attack against Palace, with Ekitike scoring on his competitive debut and fellow summer signing Florian Wirtz also impressing, and Slot believes his side are now more dangerous going forward.

"The whole pre-season we've seen we are able to create more and we are more comfortable on the ball," Slot said.

"We create more opportunities, chances, we dominate maybe even more. Last season we had a lot of ball possession but that didn't always lead to promising situations.

"Now we are better at creating and getting in promising situations than we were in my opinion throughout all of last season."

However, five days out from Liverpool's Premier League opener at home to Bournemouth, Slot accepted that changes could be required defensively to ensure his side are not letting in so many goals.

"The other side is also true," Slot said.

"We've conceded four against Milan, one against the Japanese team, two against Bilbao and two again here today.

"What made us really strong last season was we mostly won by one goal. That had mostly to do with us keeping a clean sheet or at a maximum conceding one goal."

The Liverpool boss added: "It needs maybe a little bit of an adjustment defensively at the moment because we don't concede a lot of chances but we do concede goals at the moment."

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.