Arne Slot could not shy away from yet another poor Liverpool performance in the Premier League as they fell to a 3-2 defeat at Brentford.
The visitors found themselves behind for a sixth successive game in all competitions when Dango Ouattara put the Bees ahead early on after meeting a long throw.
Kevin Schade doubled their lead towards the end of normal time before Milos Kerkez gave Liverpool a shot in the arm with his first goal for the club on the stroke of halftime.
Brentford were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box when Virgil van Dijk kicked the underside of Ouattara’s foot, but a VAR check discovered that it happened on the line. Igor Thiago stepped up to convert the penalty.
Mo Salah thundered a brilliant strike in off the crossbar to give the Reds hope of coming away with a point, but they could not find an equaliser despite copious amounts of stoppage time.
Slot felt his side were miles off it on the night as brentford came away with a deserved 3-2 victory, with just two points now separating the teams in the Premier League table.
“The performance was not so good,” Slot told TNT Sports. “Maybe apart from 20-25 minutes in the first half. We were already 1-0 down by that moment in time but at that moment in those 20-25 minutes, I thought the result was possible.
“From the rest of the game, looking at the way we played and the way Brentford played, I don’t think it was ever in the game for us to get a result.”
Slot makes ‘worst’ Liverpool admission over Brentford defeat
Liverpool have lost their last four top-flight games in a row, becoming the first Premier League side to do so after winning their opening five games. Slot believes this was the worst of their recent defeats.
“You cannot compare all of them but the most concerning thing is that you lose four times in a row. Afterwards you can judge the performance and today was the worst in my opinion from all the four. Again, conceding a set-piece and not scoring one makes it hard to win a game of football.”
Asked why it was worse than the others, Slot explained: “We didn’t do the basics right in the first half and parts of the second. They won more duels than us, they won more second balls than us and if you come here and you know if you are going to concede goals then one of them may be a set-piece and a counter-attack is also one of their biggest strengths and that’s how we conceded two goals.
“I’m not sure the referee would have given them the penalty but it turned out to be inside. After going 3-1 down we tried, made some substitutes but maybe if I am completely honest, them scoring at that moment in time was more likely than us to make it 3-2.”
