'Not for the first time' - Arne Slot says he 'wasn't happy' with one aspect of Liverpool's performance

Arne Slot toasted Liverpool moving into the Champions League last 16 - but admitted he ‘wasn’t happy’ a clean sheet failed to be yielded.

The Reds earned a 2-1 triumph over LOSC Lille to extend their perfect record in Europe’s elite club competition. Mo Salah and Harvey Elliott were on target at Anfield to deliver a seventh successive victory. As a result, Slot’s side remain top of the new league format and are guaranteed a place in the top two.

It means they’ll head to PSV Eindhoven next week with the pressure off and knowing they will not have to play additional play-off matches to reach the knockout stage of the Champions League.

But despite easing to three points against Lille, Slot was frustrated that Liverpool conceded a goal having given Lille a dearth of chances throughout the encounter. The Liverpool head coach said at his post-match press conference: I am used to [it] from these players, what maybe today asked a bit more from them [is] that they had to be patient because the reason why Lille has done so well - 21 games unbeaten and the teams they've beaten in the Champions League - is, without any disrespect at all, they don't have the best players in the world, they have very good players, but they don't have the best players in the world and then to be able to do so well tells you how disciplined they are, how hard they want to work and how well the manager does over there.

“We were not starting to force [anything] because they are really compact and defended really well. We didn't force a pass; we just kept the ball for as long as we could. The only thing I wasn't happy about is that not for the first time in recent weeks it was one chance for the other team and a goal, but that's maybe a phase of the season we are in at the moment.”

Liverpool’s win was somewhat blemished by Curtis Jones having to be substituted at half-time because of an injury. The midfielder has assisted Salah’s opening goal but picked up an issue shortly afterwards. Jones received treatment and saw out the first period before he was replaced by Harvey Elliott.

The England international was due to play for longer and Dominik Szoboszlai had been earmarked to be withdrawn at the interval although Slot had to changed his plans. he idea was to take Dom and Ryan [Gravenberch] off at half-time, but Curtis unfortunately couldn’t continue, so that’s why Dom stayed [on] a bit longer.

“Conor [Bradley], the idea was to play 90 but in the end you could see that it got tougher and tougher and tougher for him in terms of load, so you don’t want to take the risk of him getting injured in the last few minutes like it happened against [Real] Madrid.

“We wanted to win this game, but we were also aware of the fact that we had to manage the load because we would have been really, really, really unlucky if we’d have lost twice and still not been in the top eight.

“There was a moment in the game where he felt [something] and he said let’s play for five more minutes and then see how it is, but [then] he said he had to go off at half-time.”