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Arne Slott He admitted that he did not see a worrying decline in Liverpool’s form after their fourth consecutive defeat.
The Reds’ Premier League Title defense already looks weak after 3-2 defeat brentford Thanks to goals from Dango Ouattara, Kevin Schade and Igor Thiago.
Milos Kerkez pulled one back mohammed salah His recent goal drought ended, but the champions are still in despair and could end the weekend seven points behind leaders Arsenal.
“Disappointing again,” said Reds boss Slott. “I was expecting and expecting a better performance. It was a far cry from the performance we are accustomed to. Even when we were losing our performance was better than tonight.
“It seems like teams have a certain style of play against us, which is a very good strategy to play, and we haven’t found an answer to that yet.
“You can’t even compete, which we don’t do at the moment – we don’t compete there – because we just concede too many goals.
“It’s definitely to do with that if you change a lot over the summer, I think it’s no surprise it can happen like this. But I didn’t expect it to happen with four losses in a row, let’s be clear.”
Slott was well aware of Brentford’s threat from long throws – he said he had worked on this in training on Friday – but liverpool Still couldn’t handle them as they fell behind after just five minutes.
Christopher Ajer nodded at the near post Michael Kayode’s delivery and Ouattara raced past Kerkes to hook the ball.
The second goal came in the 45th minute, moments later Cody Gakpo had a strong case for a penalty which was rejected after a challenge from Nathan Collins.
Florian Wirtz lost the ball in midfield and Mikael Damsgaard delivered the perfect defence-splitting pass to Schade, who showed a neat pair of heels to Ibrahima Konate before slotting past Giorgi Mamardashvili.
However, Liverpool grabbed a lifeline in stoppage time when Connor Bradley’s cross was headed home by fellow full-back Kerkes.
After the break, Virgil van Dijk clipped Ouattara on the edge of the box and referee Tim Robinson awarded a free-kick.
But a VAR check showed the contact was on the line, a penalty was awarded and Thiago did the rest.
Slot felt his side got the tough end of both penalty decisions. “This is not an excuse but a lenient punishment to accept,” he said.
“And it’s a key moment right before it’s 2-0. You show the penalty and that moment, if I had to give one it would be to Cody.”
With two minutes remaining Salah got his first goal in seven games, a sweet finish after Ajer’s hesitation to feed a cross to Dominik Szoboszlai, but the equalizer was denied.
The Bees, who have struggled this season after losing boss Thomas Frank and several star players, now sit 10th after three wins from four.
“We took the game out there and that’s what was important to me,” said head coach Keith Andrews.
“The team is clearly growing. I think we’re getting a variety of performances now. I thought we deserved it. I’m really happy with how things are going.”