On what he felt was missing for Liverpool in the contest…
A goal… that’s the most simple answer. And to score a goal against a team that’s defending so well in and around their box, there are a few ways to unlock it. That is for some teams in this league, or for a lot of teams in this league, a set-piece. We were close with Virgil [van Dijk]. We got eight – unfortunately, we didn’t score. Another way of unlocking it is something we saw last week against Wolves, when Jeremie Frimpong had his moment of magic, a quick one-v-one where he brought the ball in, and I think he had a few of those moments today as well.
If you look at the bigger picture, so you forget the one-v-ones, I said to them at half-time [that] we can bring more bodies in the box than we in moments did in the first half. When we did cross, it would have been nice if there were more bodies in their box from us, not from them but from us. A lot of ball possession. I think we are the team with the most ball possession this year in the league, but ball possession means not a lot if you cannot create enough chances. To create chances against a low block you need pace, individual special moments to create an overload. You don’t see a lot of 15-to-20-passes goals against low blocks.
And another way of course of unlocking is from a counter-attack or winning the ball back high up the pitch when they want to bring the ball out from the back. But if I simply look at the second half, I think their goalkeeper almost kicked every ball long. Then when you win it, there are 11 players in front of you. Everyone, including me, wants us to go forward as fast as possible but when there are 11 players standing in front of you in and around their box, it’s not so easy to find players who are free close enough to the goal. That’s why it was another time – not for the first time this season – we saw a team that wanted, tried, kept trying, but it was hard for us to find an opening.
On if he thought there could have been a penalty for a foul on Hugo Ekitike in the first half…
No, because he stayed on his feet. When he would have fallen down, that would probably be a penalty. But I can understand why he doesn’t go down, because this season so many times when we were fouled inside the 18-yard box, we didn’t get a penalty. So maybe as a result of that, players from us think, ‘Yeah, let’s then try to stay on our feet.’ Because we’ve conceded a few where there was hardly any contact; Brentford away, Crystal Palace in the Community Shield, I can go on and on and on with soft penalties we’ve conceded this season. But when fouls were being made on us – Brentford away, Cody Gakpo, the referee said play on – maybe as a result of that, our players try to do everything to stay on their feet. Then it’s hard for a VAR to interfere or a referee to give a penalty if you stay on your feet.
