Arne Slot said he will take a lot of confidence from his Liverpool side’s resilience after seeing them come from behind to beat Brighton 2-1 and go back top of the Premier League.
Liverpool were second best in the first half and fell behind to a fine strike from Ferdi Kadioglu, with Georginio Rutter and Danny Welbeck spurning chances to add to their lead before the break.
And they paid the price as Liverpool looked a different side in the second half, with two goals in three minutes from Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah turning the game on its head.
On a day that both Manchester City and Arsenal lost, Liverpool went back to the top of the table – two points clear of City – but Slot was more interested in what he had seen from his own side, pointing both to this performance and last week’s recovery in a 2-2 draw away to the Gunners.
“It’s not because they lost, but what I do like is last week we were two times one goal behind against Arsenal, 1-0 and 2-1, and two times we were able to fight back,” he said.
“In this game we were 1-0 down at half-time – I think we deserved to be – and then to come back so strongly against a quality team, to come back the way that we did gives me a lot of confidence.
“But I also said to the players the 45 minutes of football we played in the first half, that will punish you somewhere. We need to show up from the start.”
Slot insisted there was no angry half-time speech to inspire Liverpool’s comeback and said that, aside from a couple of tactical tweaks, the credit belonged to the players.
“First of all credit to Brighton for the way they showed up here with composure, not afraid to play out from the back really well, and with a lot of energy without the ball,” he said.
“We didn’t show up at all in every part of the game, maybe except for set-pieces. Against a good team like Brighton it is not enough to run once, twice, three times, you have to keep on running.
“We changed a bit of tactics but that was nothing to do with us coming out stronger in the second half. It all had to do with the players, they showed a different attitude and intensity.
“I said a few things but I wasn’t screaming or fuming. It’s just making sure the players understand this was not enough and I think they felt themselves that way.”
Brighton played some excellent football, particularly in the first half, but a week after blowing a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 with Wolves Fabian Hurzeler was again left frustrated.
“In the end football is always a game of results and we need results for the process,” the Brighton boss said. “We have to understand how to get results.
“The performance was good enough to win this game easily, especially in the first half, we had a lot of moments where we should have scored a second or even a third goal and then the game is completely different.
“But then in the second half we had two or three moments where we weren’t precise enough and we lost 50-50 duels and we got a bit affected by the atmosphere.
“These things are important experiences to learn from to get the results you deserve in the end. There is the balance, the performance is good but in the end we are a club with ambitions and we need to get results out of these games.”
Liverpool lost Ibrahima Konate at half-time, with the defender nursing his left arm as he left the pitch, but Slot said it was too early to assess the extent of the injury.
Liverpool 2-1 Brighton
