Liverpool have won their seventh-straight game in the UEFA Champions League after beating French Ligue 1 side LOSC Lille 2 – 1.
Reds boss Arne Slot expressed happiness over the overall performance but took the opportunity to admit that some areas need improvement of his team would go further than the round of 16, which is slated to begin in February.
He began his media comments by talking about the patience that his team required to face Kills, who have had a great season across all competitions.
“I am used to [it] from these players,” he said. “What maybe today asked a bit more from them [is] that they had to be patient because the reason why Lille has done so well – 21 games unbeaten and the teams they’ve beaten in the Champions League – is, without any disrespect at all, they don’t have the best players in the world, they have very good players, but they don’t have the best players in the world and then to be able to do so well tells you how disciplined they are, how hard they want to work and how well the manager does over there.
“We were not starting to force [anything] because they are really compact and defended really well. We didn’t force a pass; we just kept the ball for as long as we could. The only thing I wasn’t happy about is that not for the first time in recent weeks it was one chance for the other team and a goal, but that’s maybe a phase of the season we are in at the moment.”
One of the highlights of the game for Liverpool was that they set an European record for playing the longest European competition minutes without conceding despite the match eventually ending in a 2 – 1 score line.
“Very pleased,” Slot said, when asked about the record. “Where I put everything down to first of all [is] the quality of the players, and second of all these quality players have an incredible work-rate. If you combine those two things, it’s very difficult to score against the team.
“Apart from that, there were also games, I think when I look back at Girona, for example, they created quite a few chances. Alisson [Becker] was fantastic back then. The nice thing for me is that we keep clean sheets not by defending a lot, we keep clean sheets by attacking a lot. That makes it even nicer than if we were all the time in a low block kicking every ball away and don’t take any risks in build-up and then keep a clean sheet.
“It’s still nice. But I prefer it like this, and I think the fans prefer it like this as well.”
