Arne Slot lifts lid on Liverpool gameplan that saw them target two Real Madrid superstars
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Alexis Mac Allister headed the only goal on 61 minutes from a Dominik Szoboszlai free-kick as the Reds beat the Spanish giants 1-0 at Anfield on Tuesday evening.It was a second successive victory for Liverpool after ending a run of six defeats in seven with a 2-0 Premier League win over Aston Villa on Saturday and only a fourth clean sheet of the campaign.And Slot believes the concentration on stopping dangermen Kylian Mbappe – who had 18 goals in 14 games this season – and Vincius Jnr paid dividends.“I told the players they had scored 26 goals in La Liga and Vinicius and Mbappe had 24 goal contributions together,” the Reds head coach said.“I don’t think you can ever control these two completely but you can do a few things well. We did almost the maximum you can do against these two individuals.“If you want to have any chance of winning a game you have to defend set-pieces well but great individuals can score goals as well.”Asked about Liverpool’s back-to-back wins, Slot said: “Both teams played quite similar against us.“Maybe the difference was that I told the players today that I wanted them to either press really high or go to a low block because Vinicius and Mbappe are for so many reasons incredible players but their timing of deep runs and pace is next level.“Don’t give away any space in behind and that’s what our last line did very well tonight.
A very solid defensive performance in both games but it also helps you are not 1-0 or 2-0 down when we had to take extra risks and sometimes a bit exposed.”Liverpool, who beat Real Madrid 2-0 at Anfield in the league stage of the Champions League last season, now have nine points from 12 at the halfway point of the opening round.And Slot said: “It was an impressive win because we played against an incredible side. If you then can win against them with the performance we had then that’s very positive.“Apart from everything we can say we beat them because of a set-piece.
It’s nicer to talk about this if you win, but a positive set-piece balance is the minimum to get a result nine out of 10 times and that’s what we got today.“We had a very bad run of form in terms of results. But we had to play a lot of games in a small amount of time with hardly any rest in between when we faced a team who had a lot of rest.“Today we faced a team who also played on a Saturday and it’s helpful we played at home.