ReactionArne Slot press conference: Second-half performance at Ipswich, Salah, Gravenberch and more

Finishes from Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah after the break at Portman Road saw the Reds post three points at their first opportunity.

After a difficult opening 45 minutes, Jota opened the scoring on the hour mark before Salah doubled the visitors' lead to set an all-time competition record for goals scored on the opening day.

Read on for a full transcript of Slot's post-match press conference…

On the changes made at half-time...

We as a team made a big change at half-time because we came out totally different to how we had come out in the first half. I have to give credit to Ipswich as well because I think they were aggressive, they were not afraid, they were playing one-v-one all over the pitch to defend us. Then it is about winning your duels and winning your second balls. I think they won more than us and that's why it was absolutely an equal game in the first half.

Second half, we won more duels, we won more second balls and we played more balls in behind because if the other team takes the risk of playing one-v-one and you have the likes of Luis Diaz, Mo Salah and Diogo Jota then use them, play the balls in behind. That's what we did better in the second half and from there on gaps opened up and you could see how good and how well we could play in possession.

On how long Salah can keep playing at the highest level after setting another Premier League record...

If I see what he does to keep his body as it is and to be ready to play every game, I think there are many more years inside of him to play. But, if you're OK with it, I am looking now at Brentford and not at the end of the season!

On what he was disappointed with in the first half...

No, [it was] not so much that we lost the balls too much – I think we lost far too many duels. They were very aggressive, which led to three yellow cards – but in a good way aggressive – and we didn't cope with that well enough, in my opinion. That's what I said to them at half-time, if you want to win here then you need to go a step up in terms of winning your duels first and make a fight out of it, instead of accepting that every time we play a ball long that the ball ends up in our 16 again. It helped us as well because Ibou Konate came in because he, from the start, won his duels against the No.9 and that gave us also a lot of ball possession and two goals, but we could have scored a few more, though.

On Ryan Gravenberch's performance in the No.6 role...

For me, it is always about the team so if individual performance is really good, that is because the team does really well. Everybody is emphasising on the goal Mo scored and the assist he had, but both goals were from a build-up situation where we started one time with Virgil [van Dijk] and the other time, I think, even with Alisson [Becker]. So, we need to make sure these players, the attackers, come into promising positions and the team needs to help them for that.

It's the same with Ryan. Of course, Ryan is attacking-minded but if we play with him then the rest of the team needs to help him as well. It takes a lot of effort for the attackers and the attacking midfielders to help him there, but what we do know with Ryan is that he can play the ball forward if he sees options to do so. That helped us today, especially in the second half.

On his first impressions of the Premier League…

When I started here, there were many things that had been told to me, but one of them was that Jürgen [Klopp] hated the 12.30 kick-off, and today the team showed that we hated the 12.30 kick-off because we were not in the game in the first half. And the second thing what people told me is that there are no easy games in the Premier League, and we showed that today. If you play against a newly promoted team and they can make such a fight out of it as they did in the first half, they can make it so difficult for us, then there's probably a lot more to come. And that's why it's also important for us to have weeks, like the upcoming ones, where we can work with the team to prepare them even better than we prepared them today because the first half was not good enough. The second half was a real good performance.

On Gravenberch playing in the defensive midfield position…

Defending we do with 11, we don't do this with one player, so we need to help him as all the others in the position where he's playing in or where anyone else is playing in. It's not that only Virgil and Ibou or only Virgil and Jarell [Quansah] are defending – the whole team has to do so. If we defend with 11, that will help Ryan or whoever is playing there a lot. Last season, Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] played there a lot and I think he has certain qualities that Ryan has as well. If you look at both players, the first thing you think of is with the ball, in ball possession and that's why we as a team have to make sure that whoever is playing in that position is not too exposed. That's what happened today because I think the team really helped to defend in the best possible way, and because of that Ryan had a good performance.

On how close the second half was to what he wants to see from the team going forward…

I don't think for the Liverpool supporters it's the first time in nine years that they saw the team playing really well! I inherited a very, very good team with a lot of great individuals but also these players have to understand that it is not enough what they brought in the first half. If they bring the maximum of their capacity then they can play really, really good, and that's what they showed in the second half today. It was good to see the goals we scored but I think the attack that would have probably been on Match of the Day tonight as well that didn't lead to a goal was the nicest one, and that was the one Lucho just hit over the bar. That was the way I want to see the team doing more and more and more and more if they can.

On finding Salah's runs in behind the defence for the goals...

The way the other team defends, there we have to find our answer. Today, Ipswich took the risk to always play one-v-one all over the pitch, so their centre-back always stepped in towards Dominik Szoboszlai. That means that you leave three defenders against three of our attackers, and then we need to recognise those moments and then make sure that we bring those three players in dangerous situations. And that's then not to keep playing short, we have to find them with direct passes or passes in behind. And that led to the fact that they didn't take that risk anymore and from that moment we had a lot of time to play and to do our build-up, which you saw in the end of the second half. We have to recognise how the other team is defending and then we have to find our answer. That's what we did really well in the second half.

• Read our match report from Portman Road here