Arne Slot jumps to Gary O'Neil's defence after Wolves 1-2 Liverpool

Liverpool’s head coach was delighted with his own side’s narrow 2-1 win at Molineux but wanted to shift the focus on his opposite number, Gary O’Neil.

Slot commended the Wolves manager for his tactical nous, revealing a certain approach caused great problems for Liverpool in the first half. The Reds’ boss also revealed how impressed he’s been by O’Neil’s approach in several other fixtures, despite the results suggesting Wanderers have been out of sorts.

“Wolves had a week to prepare and if you have a really good manager like Gary O’Neil, they’ll come up with a great game plan and they did,” Slot said during the post-match press conference.

“They overloaded the right side and it made it tough for us in the first 20 minutes. When they laid down their energy, it became a bit easier and we could control the game.

“They absolutely don’t deserve to be last because they have had a very difficult future list. I’ve seen many games and in almost every game they’ve deserved a lot more. You could even argue that today because it wasn’t like we were completely better than them, they were in the game and doing a lot of good things.

“If they keep doing things like this against other teams as well, they’ll never end up number 20,” Slot continued.

The Dutchman’s opinion is understandable as Wolves have had excellent spells in pretty much every match this season. There have just been a few too many lapses of concentration in the defensive third, mixed with the ruthless nature of oppositions.

That was certainly the case against Liverpool, as the game was won by a powerful header from Ibrahima Konate and a penalty from Mohamed Salah. The tide should eventually turn for Wolves when the fixture list improves.