Ipswich Town: Liverpool manager Arne Slot credits Blues for first half display despite 2-0 loss at Portman Road

Liverpool boss Arne Slot gave credit to Ipswich Town for their first half display following his side’s 2-0 victory at Portman Road.

The Blues matched the Reds in the opening 45 minutes and had the better of the game’s few chances but the visitors stepped it up and grabbed two goals in five minutes after the hour through Diogo Jota and Mo Salah.

Slot made one switch of personnel at the break with Ibrahima Konate replacing Jarell Quansah, but he felt the team as a whole stepped up a notch.

“We as a team made a big change at half-time because we came out totally different than we came out for the first half,” Slot, who was taking charge of his first game since moving from Feyenoord this summer, said.

“But I have to give credit to Ipswich as well because I think they were aggressive, they were not afraid, they were playing all over the pitch one-v-one to defend us and then it’s about winning your duels and winning your second balls and I think they won more than us and that’s why it was absolutely an equal game in the first half.

“But in the second half, we won more duels, we won more second balls and we played more balls in behind because if the other team takes the risk of playing one-v-one and you have the likes of Luis Diaz, Mo Salah and Diogo Jota, then use them.

“Play the balls in behind and that’s what we did in the second half and from there on gaps opened up and you could also see how good and how well we could play in ball possession.”

Regarding that disappointing opening period, he added: “[It was] not so much that we lost the balls too much – I think we lost far too many duels.

“They were very aggressive, which led to three yellow cards – but in a good way aggressive – and we didn't cope with that well enough, in my opinion.

“That's what I said to them at half-time. If you want to win here then you need to go a step up in terms of winning your duels first and make a fight out of it, instead of accepting that every time we play a ball long that the ball ends up in our 16 [penalty area] again.

“It helped us as well because Ibou Konate came in because he, from the start, won his duels against the number nine [Liam Delap] and that also gave us a lot of ball possession and two goals, but we could have scored a few more, though.”

Town now face a trip to champions Manchester City on Saturday with kick off at 3pm.