Liverpool manager Arne Slot was at a press conference on Friday ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League match against Southampton at 4pm. In particular, he was asked about the “luck” required to win 0-1 last Wednesday against Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16 (return leg on Tuesday March 11).
Slot “We weren’t a bit lucky…”
“We haven’t been a bit lucky, we’ve been really, really lucky. But as Michael Jordan once said, the harder you work, the luckier you get. That’s the highest compliment you can pay a player. Even in the second half, we weren’t the dominant team by any means, but we controlled them better than we did in the first half.”
We were mentally and physically so strong to produce such a performance in the second half, without conceding as many open chances as in the first half. Even scoring a goal on the counter-attack shows just how strong the players are mentally and physically,” Foot Mercato reports.
It’s good to see that Slot is aware that success at the Parc des Princes comes down to a few things. Hardly anyone could have missed it. PSG largely dominated and Liverpool owed their success in large part to the immense performance of 32-year-old Alisson Becker. Becker is part of the team and a reminder of the importance of the goalkeeper.
But the Parisians could also have been a little more skilful, or a little luckier. It’s also a shame to forget the defensive solidity at the end of the match, which the Reds were able to capitalize on.
Still, the Reds coach has a nice phrase to describe the second-half strategy, which seemed to revolve around a clear and unusual point for a big team: defend the surface by being as low down as possible. It remains to be seen what the plan will be for the return leg.
