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Arne Slot revealed the away dressing room at Portman Road wasn’t a happy place at half-time.
Slot, taking charge of his first Premier League game, saw his Liverpool team not hit the intensity levels required to win in this division – no matter the opposition. Ipswich were brave, bold and aggressive as their in-your-face approach wasn’t matched by the visitors. He wasn’t impressed – and let his players know.
Of the 53 duels that were competed in the first 45 minutes, Ipswich won 58 per cent of them.
A high percentage of those duels were being won by Ipswich centre-forward Liam Delap, who gave Jarrell Quansah a tough time. Slot spotted that issue and wasted no time in replacing Quansah at the break with Ibrahima Konate – it was not an injury related substitution, it was purely tactical.
The Frenchman’s power and influence helped Liverpool regain control by stopping the flow into Delap and provided the launchpad for their second-half performance to rocket. Konate helped their duels-won ratio leap to 55 per cent after the break.
A haul of 2.61 expected goals from 15 shots in the second half, 13 of them from inside the box resulted in two goals and three points for Slot as Liverpool’s tactic of exploiting Ipswich’s very risky game of one-on-one defending up against Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah was exposed. It was a very encouraging start for the new boss.
Lewis Jones
Culled from Skysports
18th August, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: Arne Slot
