Liverpool boss Arne Slot said people would “make stories” out of the reasons for his side’s 3-2 defeat at Fulham but played down the defensive mistakes in their first Premier League loss since September.
Three Fulham goals in 14 first-half minutes proved to be a hill too hard to climb for Slot’s men, who saw a 26-game unbeaten league run ended in west London owing largely to their own defensive mistakes.
They had briefly led at Craven Cottage before errors from Curtis Jones, Andrew Robertson and Virgil van Dijk respectively played their part in Fulham’s rapid-fire turnaround before the break.
That put Liverpool two goals down for the first time since their Merseyside derby defeat to Everton in April last year, and, despite Luis Diaz’s smart finish 18 minutes from the end, they could not force an equaliser.
Slot pointed to Liverpool’s defensive consistency – conceding only 27 goals in 30 games prior to this defeat – when asked whether pressure or complacency was affecting his side, and denied the result and performance was any more than a bad day at the office.
“There’s always a lot of attention around Liverpool,” he told Sky Sports. “That doesn’t start now, that’s been there the whole season.
“Of course, people want to make stories but for me it’s all about playing Fulham. They’re a good team, and if you then make three errors it’s going to be very difficult to win the game against them.
Premier League highlights of the match between Fulham and Liverpool
“In general, we are not making many of these errors, let alone three in one game. Today, we also had (Ibrahima) Konate losing the ball too.
“The second half was so much better than the first, but it’s hard to win a game of football at this level if you concede three goals like this.
“You could feel that we were creating a lot of chances, we’ve had a few but unfortunately we lacked time in the end to score the third goal. That has to do with us conceding three goals, because to score three in an away game is very hard especially against a good team like Fulham.”
Slot aims shot at Man City: We’ve worked harder for this position
Slot compared Liverpool to the Man City side who won four consecutive Premier League titles by suggesting his team had needed to work harder to get into the position they find themselves in, with an 11-point lead at the top of the table with seven games remaining.
“There’s no reason for us to be complacent,” he said. “We’re not first because we win every game by a margin of three or four goals.
“I think everyone that has seen our games, it takes us so much effort, so much hard work to win games of football, combined with quality, of course.
“But the team that won the league the last four seasons [Man City] were already 3-0 up at half-time almost every single game they played.
“And that’s not the way it is for us. So we are fully aware of the fact that we have to compete for seven more games.
“We saw it on Wednesday against Everton. It was a close call. Today was a close call. Many times we’ve been on the right side. Today we were on the wrong side, mainly because of the errors we made.”
‘There will always be moments when Van Dijk will suffer’
Virgil van Dijk was outwitted by Rodrigo Muniz in the build-up to Fulham’s third
Van Dijk had another difficult afternoon at Craven Cottage after struggling against Beto on Wednesday night when the Everton forward came close with a number of chances in Everton’s 1-0 defeat at Anfield.
The normally reliable Dutchman was largely culpable for Fulham’s third goal, misjudging a high ball and allowing Rodrigo Muniz to have a clear run on goal before firing home.
“I mainly give credit to other players as well,” said Slot when asked about his captain’s form. “Van Dijk is not the first player to find it difficult to defend against Beto. And the one that played here today, you have to give credit to him also.
“I still see a lot of things that Virgil does really well, but if you play 50-60 games a season, there will be moments, even for him, where you could have done better.”
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