Arne Slot admitted that the performance of Liverpool’s first half against Southampton was a “warning sign” as it had to “create anger” in the dressing room at rest.
Following the added goal of Will Smallbone after a misunderstanding between Virgil Van Dijk and goalkeeper Alisson Becker, Slot – who was looking at the main stand while serving the last game of suspending his touch line – quickly moved to correct the situation.
After leaving his players with an order to raise the tempo, he made a triple replacement with Harvey Elliott, Andy Robertson and Alexis Mac Allister coming and immediately changing the dynamics.
Inside the five -minute space, Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah, with the first of the two penalties, had turned things around while the Premier League leaders extended their advantage to 16 points before their second foot collision with PSG on Tuesday in Anfield.
Slot was told Heavenly: “It was a very poor performance in the first half. Maybe if you see the highlights you would feel there were three or four chances, but we were not in the game at all and didn’t come to the surprise for me that we received a goal. Especially if you look at the way we accepted it, it tells you everything for our first half.
“We found a way to win the match in the second half.
“In the media, in my meetings, I explained to them how difficult for a game it was and that we have to play at different levels of intensity than we have played against Paris Saint-Germain. Maybe we also get used to the level of intensity we will experience again on Tuesday. But in the end I had to make some difficult decisions, maybe in half.
“That triple replacement at the beginning of the second half seemed to reign the team. The three who entered did really well. That’s the first thing, but I can see from the other eight another attitude.
“So if you look at the first goal, we played the ball to the diazi and all of a sudden he was in Tempo trying to create something, where in the first half he kept the ball waiting, waiting, waiting and that was not just for him, but in general.
“And in the second goal you can see Ryan Gravenberch getting up, winning the second ball that led to the penalty, where in the first half they could save each time after crossing the ball.
“I’m fully aware of the fact that if you play a season, you can’t play 38 times in the highest intensity or the best possible football you can play. So sometimes you have to find another way to win a game.
“But the first half today is a warning sign because as I said, we have already experienced it in Paris, that the intensity, the way they play, was too high for us that night. And if I compare it with the intensity we played today, it is not one, three, four steps, is probably six or seven steps down to the level of Paris.”
