There’s a difference between a team working to create chances against you and simply gifting the opportunities.
The Polish kid the other night having a free effort on our goal which Ali had to parry away because Trent lost the ball 20 yards from goal isn’t acceptable. Their chance when they kept the ball and built up nicely which led to them hitting the post after a deflection, you can tolerate because they were playing well and we weren’t in control.
Today, the chance Sarr had when Lacroix found him between Kostas and Virgil which required a top save from Ali, you can tolerate. Someone could’ve gone out to close him quicker to stop the pass but it’s good play by them and there isn’t too much we could’ve done. The chance Nketiah had when Hughes pinched the ball off Grav 30 yards from our goal isn’t acceptable. It was the only foot Grav put wrong all game but that could’ve been anyone and we’ve seen it happen a number of times and each time we’ve gotten away with it.
No, I don’t think we are particularly weak at the back at all. My concern is more that we are trading off some offensive pressure in order to retain possession, in theory to allow very few shots. Today, we didn’t really see that in relative terms. A little more risk-taking might have picked up a 2nd goal, but that isn’t Slot’s approach. He will be delighted with the 3 points, but likely sees a great deal to work in terms of execution.
I expect Slot wants to be able to turn that possession into more threat, more pressure around the box. It is probably not much of a surprise that the team is learning Slot’s methods in that respect more slowly than other elements, because it is one of the biggest differences with Klopp’s. Klopp wanted tempo, if you see an opportunity, charge in, take the shot, see what happens, get the ball back, try again. But in terms of what happens playing out of the defence and indeed through midfield, the two are not that different and the patterns don’t have to change much.
The Forest goal was a beaut even if we could have done a lot better closing up the player.
I’m more concerned with the passages of play where we tend to give up the ball easily. Those seem to be happening with more regularity. We tend to take a lot of time to reset and then play proper football again. That needs to be cut down.
That happened quite often in Klopp’s tenure as well. Rarely do we go through the matches without those patchy portions of play. If we are to do well this season against the better sides , we would need to work on those aspects. The better teams will simply punish us quicker.
And my response is that we are giving up many chances, so even supposed free scoring teams won’t get numerous chances and if they only get one then i would be happy.
We conceded two goals.
Sometimes you need your keeper to make saves.
We will never have all the ball, so how we manage with the opposition in possession matters.
I think we have made a few mistakes.
But every team concedes, at the moment we have conceded less.
Whilst in transition to a different style of football.