Arne Slot has explained the importance of Ryan Gravenberch as Liverpool came up against a man-marking system in their 2-0 victory over Bologna.
The Reds came away with the three points in their first Champions League game at Anfield in 18 months, with Alexis Mac Allister and Mohamed Salah scoring.
It was a tougher contest than many had expected, with Slot emphasising throughout his post-match media duties that the Serie A side took the fight to Liverpool with a man-to-man approach all over the pitch.
The head coach compared it to the setup Atalanta used in their 3-0 triumph at Anfield in the Europa League in April – only this time, the Reds were able to play through it.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Slot discussed the role Gravenberch had in beating this press and creating overloads.
“There are a few ways to overload or outplay them, and one of them definitely is a player that can drive with the ball, dribble with the ball, outplay someone,” he told reporters.
“Because if you outplay someone, you immediately have an overload.
“That is what happened after two or three minutes already when Ryan turned away, again, from a pass from Virgil.
“He was outstanding again today, Ryan, with his dribbling ability, and that was important against this team.
“But if we only focus on the dribbles he had, we forget maybe how important he is without the ball, where he does a lot of work and wins a lot of second balls as well.”
The same praise could be laid at the feet of Dominik Szoboszlai, who won six of his nine duels and equalled Gravenberch in terms of successful dribbles (three) – with a higher success rate of 75 percent.
Rightly, though, the Dutchman has been the focus of the media after an outstanding start to the campaign, and Slot echoed his words from his press conference when speaking to TNT Sports.
“I was delighted with him,” he said of Gravenberch.
“I don’t tell my players that I’m delighted with them at half-time, because there’s 45 minutes to go. But I said after the game, again, a big performance.
“He played really well because, again I come back to this man-v-man [game], if you then have a player that can turn away from his man you immediately have an overload.
“I think that happened in the first minute, where Virgil played him and he turned away, but we were a bit unlucky, or not perfect, in the last ball.
“But Ryan was, again, outstanding today.”
