Liverpool boss Arne Slot gave credit to Town for their first-half display following his side’s 2-0 victory at Portman Road.

The Blues matched the Reds in the first half and had the better of the game’s few chances but the visitors stepped it up and grabbed two goals in five minutes after the hour through Diogo Jota and Mo Salah.

Slot made one switch of personnel at the break, Ibrahima Konate replacing Jarell Quansah, but he felt the team as a whole stepped up a notch.

“We as a team made a big change at half-time because we came out totally different than we came out for the first half,” Slot, who was taking charge of his first game since moving from Feyenoord this summer, said.

“But I have to give credit to Ipswich as well because I think they were aggressive, they were not afraid, they were playing all over the pitch one-v-one to defend us and then it’s about winning your duels and winning your second balls and I think they won more than us and that’s why it was absolutely an equal game in the first half.

“But in the second half, we won more duels, we won more second balls and we played more balls in behind because if the other team takes the risk of playing one-v-one and you have the likes of Luis Diaz, Mo Salah and Diogo Jota, then use them.

“Play the balls in behind and that’s what we did in the second half and from there on gaps opened up and you could see also see how good and how well we could play in ball possession.”

Regarding that disappointing opening period, he added: “[It was] not so much that we lost the balls too much – I think we lost far too many duels.

“They were very aggressive, which led to three yellow cards – but in a good way aggressive – and we didn't cope with that well enough, in my opinion.

“That's what I said to them at half-time, if you want to win here then you need to go a step up in terms of winning your duels first and make a fight out of it, instead of accepting that every time we play a ball long that the ball ends up in our 16 [penalty area] again.

“It helped us as well because Ibou Konate came in because he, from the start, won his duels against the number nine [Liam Delap] and that gave us also a lot of ball possession and two goals, but we could have scored a few more, though.”

Photo: TWTD

ArnieM added 17:38 - Aug 17 .....And you had a scouser ref giving you ALL the 50:50 decisions.
-5

trncbluearmy added 18:37 - Aug 17 We will do you later
-2

bakerblue added 19:19 - Aug 17 ArmieM is that your takeaway from Slot’s assessment? I think it’s a fair representation of the match. I agree that the balance of card was not right, but I think that the idea it was due to regional bias is nonsense and in any case had no bearing on the result.
14

Phil1969 added 19:21 - Aug 17 Patronising twxt Yes it will be a struggle but McK hasn’t inherited a Champions League squad !
-8

AlpineBlue added 19:29 - Aug 17 Not sure why anyone has an issue with what he said. Think considering he's an opposition manager, it's a pretty fair assessment. I would probably argue that it was fatigue and a lack of squad depth, which we'll unfortunately have to endure for a couple of weeks, that cost us, rather than the gulf in quality. Remember last year battering teams and hearing managers stating how Ipswich got lucky and that they should have won. Pretty impressed with Slot and I wish him well this season.

22

iaintaylorx added 19:38 - Aug 17 Honest and fair. @Arnie so what do you think about Burns avoiding red then? Yellows maybe not fair, but ref did a good job.
4

Monarch_Blue added 20:44 - Aug 17 ArnieM wrote: ".....a scouser ref giving you ALL the 50:50 decisions". If that was the case, one can but speculate why Burns didn't receive a second yellow card for a deliberate handball!. It's such a pity that some fans are so "one-eyed" that they can't understand a generous and honest assessment from an opposition manager!!!
11

billlm added 20:54 - Aug 17 They couldn't cope with delap good tactical change
1

FreddySteady added 21:25 - Aug 17 Fair comment I reck.
4

DerryfromBury added 21:29 - Aug 17 Fair assessment of the game I watched.
4

runningout added 00:02 - Aug 18 I get it. But fear isn’t in any good footballers mind before or during games
1

runningout added 00:02 - Aug 18 I get it. But fear isn’t in any good footballers mind before or during games
0

Dissboyitfc added 07:02 - Aug 18 A fair assessment from Slot, although we were the better team in that first half! I am sure fatigue played a part in the drop off in the second half, thought we looked tired. Harness looked good to start with and appeared to faded really quickly! On the subject of the ref, the ref was a big disappointment, incorrect decisions all over the pitch, too many yellows in our direction and seemed to favour Liverpool with decisions he hadn't the answer to, like throw ins where the refs assistant missed it looks at the ref he misses it as well and gives it to them a corner at the end when he gave a corner for what was clearly a goal kick! The result was because we lost to a better team not because of the ref, but he was poor and I expected better!

3

Rozeeboy74 added 10:00 - Aug 18 VAR could have given the Burns red for handball but didn't. It wasn't just the ref that chose to deal with it as a cheeky moment.
1

Bazza8564 added 10:04 - Aug 18 He has it 100% correct. I thought we will have learned some valuable lessons from this game, we we far from disgraced but the gulf in the sides did become evident. One of the things i noticed about Liverpool is how quickly they shifted the ball after winning the breakdown. A moments missed control from our front line and it was suddenly in behind us. The PL refs give everything, we will (and did) start to get wise to that, but I was really disappointed with the visiting fans. 3000 of them, they clearly went through the motions expecting it to be easy, but 1200 Plymouth made way more noise than that last season???

2

Ebantiass added 10:10 - Aug 18 A fair picture from what i saw. The ref was a little bit hasty with some of our cards but you can't deny we got lucky with the yellow card burns should have been given, resulting in a red. 10 of our starting 11 made their premiere league debut and in the first half it didn't show. Liverpool have a far better team and squad. All of their bench would likely start in our team, but we will get better and we owe them at Anfield. BLUEARMY

3

churchmans added 15:00 - Aug 18 Reff was to hasty with the decisions! We won't get anything next week either! But overall that did not determine the result! The quality of Liverpool did that! Good game good things to take fom it and we move on to next week
2

Blogs 298 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls