Arne Slot’s first game in charge of Liverpool ended with a 1-0 defeat to Preston in a behind-closed-doors friendly at the AXA Training Centre on Friday.
Although the Reds had the lion’s share of chances and possession, it was Robbie Brady who conjured up the match-winning moment with a magnificent goal from long range.
Speaking after the match, the LFC head coach was pleased with a lot of what he saw from his team, but rued the sucker punch from the Republic of Ireland international.
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Slot said (via TNT Sports): “We controlled the game completely and only conceded one shot. We were a bit unlucky to lose 1-0 given we only conceded the one shot.
“We had some good build-up moments and had some good chances in the first half. The second half, I didn’t think we created that much, which is normal because there were a lot of young players in the team who didn’t play in their normal position sometimes as well.”
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There were plenty of mitigating factors to this result – it was just a friendly, Liverpool were missing 11 senior players, Slot fielded two different teams either side of half-time, the squad are still getting used to his methods – but one familiar issue still arose against Preston.
How many times last season did the Reds completely dominate opponents but fail to make it count on the scoreboard? The three games that we played against Manchester United in 2023/24 immediately spring to mind (two draws, one defeat), as does the home loss to Crystal Palace in April.
It would probably be a greater worry if LFC weren’t creating chances at all, and Mo Salah was the only one of our five established senior forwards who featured on Friday, but the inability to find a way past Freddie Woodman could still be a concern for the head coach.
The silver lining for Slot is that Liverpool’s profligacy against Preston doesn’t matter greatly in terms of it being a friendly fixture, but it throws the spotlight on a familiar problem that he’s got four weeks to solve.
If he’s making similar comments after a draw or defeat to Ipswich in his opening Premier League game on 17 August, we wouldn’t be able to dismiss it so readily then.
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