Coming into this match, you’d have to say that Inter Milan were the more in-form of the two outfits.
One point off the top in Serie A and only 1 Champions League defeat so far this year, the cauldron of noise in Milan is a hard place to come at the best of times.
Liverpool are coming off the back of consecutive draws against newly promoted opposition, so for some, the writing was on the wall, but there were a lot of positives from Tuesday’s win.
It’s been a busy, attention-grabbing week for Liverpool with the continuation of the Mo Salah saga, but for 90 minutes, Slot and his organised Liverpool team allowed the football to do the talking and here is what we learned.
We can still control football matches
Perhaps the most surprising part of the night was that Liverpool were comfortably the better team. We didn’t allow the game to escape us, and everybody stuck to their tasks.
It’s worth saying that Slot got it absolutely spot on tonight. Our compact and narrow 4-4-2 was designed to frustrate Inter and not allow them to get going.
It wasn’t a crazy spectacle of pressing or a vast expanse of attacking football; it was simple. Track your men, win the ball and play it when you can.
Having every one of our elite central midfielders on the pitch at the same time would be tough for any team to play through, and they were extremely strong in transition.
Gravenberch had a wonderful game and was so important in nullifying their attacks, trying to start some of our own.
We saw Isak and Ekitike play together on the same pitch, which is always an interesting to watch.
Whilst they were a little more spread out than you’d expect to see a strike force, they weren’t picked to score 3 or 4 goals tonight.
They were picked to keep a lid on things building from the Inter back four, and they did alright. Now, you move them 5-10 yards closer to each other, and then you’d see more bouncing off each other and cute 1-2’s.
Tonight wasn’t the night for that, and that’s okay. Defensively, we were solid and never fully allowed their momentum to build.
A classy, European away performance.
Joe Gomez has a place in the squad, not in the ‘week in, week out’ XI
Sometimes these things can’t be helped. Rotation happens between players in each position, and we should be happy to have the luxury of swapping out players at right back.
Whilst Gomez is what we needed tonight, he isn’t the long-term solution which is a constantly starting right back at the club.
Gomez’s qualities lie in breaking play up and keeping wingers quiet, fantastic attributes to have in the full back role. He stuck to his task tirelessly tonight, but as soon as we reach the final third, it begins to unravel a little.
Again, I can’t stress enough, that is what we needed tonight, but when we get back to normal service of overlapping runs and providing attacking width, it’s nice to have a Conor Bradley to step in.
Bradley came on for the last 20ish minutes and created a chance with his 3rd touch of the ball. By that time in the game, we’d done enough soaking up, and it was time to get more expansive, hence the substitute.
Another example of Slot getting it right tonight. That sub opened up our right-hand side, and it’s not surprising our best chances started or came from there.
In our next match like this, give me Gomez. When we're up by a goal with 10 minutes to go, give me Joe Gomez. It’s hard to find players willing to perform this role, so we should be counting ourselves lucky.
We still have a dynamic squad and an intelligent coach
I really like what I saw from Liverpool on Tuesday. I’d hate to think the standard for a good Liverpool performance has dropped over these past few weeks, but if Klopp had pulled a result like that out of the bag, we’d be giving him the highest praise.
That was a difficult game in a difficult setting, whilst we’re going through a difficult time. Let's not be so quick to wash over that.
We had a very solid shape and group of players working hard to maintain it. We had a goal disallowed, whether right or wrong, and their tails went up. We kept our heads and didn’t panic. How many times have we been able to say that this season?
We played a fresh system, leaving out some players who have started most games and saw immediate results.
Would we have won that game in our standard 4-3-3 with Cody Gakpo and Salah? Impossible to tell, but it's reassuring that we can find ways to win outside of the norm.
I’ve said in the past that Slot’s inability to try something new could be his downfall and a one-way ticket to the unemployment line, but he’s proven he’s still tactically sound and trustworthy in big games.
He’s switched it up, played the game from what it was and didn’t stick to a different tactic because we’d seen so much success with it. He played the game in front of him and won.
We’ve been nothing if not a Jekyll and Hyde team since October. Hopefully, now we’ll be seeing a bit more Jekyll and a little less Hyde.