patrick vieira manager
Tough loss to take?
Losing 3-0 it’s quite difficult and severe. Regarding the number of chances we created and the situations we created. I think we were really poor in our set pieces, defending them. You can’t concede three goals from set-pieces at Anfield if you want to take something from the game.
Decisions didn’t go your way? Penalty against Benteke, lots of fouls unpunished
When you come to a difficult place like Anfield a lot of decisions will go their way. I don’t know if this is the way it should be. There was a couple of situations where we believe those decisions didn’t go our way. The frustration isn’t about that, it is coming to a difficult place like that and wanting to take the result. But when you conceded three goals from set-pieces it’s difficult to hope getting something from the game.
Work on defending set-pieces more now?
There’s a lot of parts of the game we need to work on to improve. The last game against Spurs we did really well against set-pieces but we need to spend more time working on that. With the number of chances and situations, we created our decision making in the last 30 yards wasn’t good enough to score those goals or create those goals.
What was different to this game compared to Spurs?
You need a little bit of luck. We didn’t have it today. But we created chances, we conceded chances as well but when it comes to a place like that with players like that it will be difficult. We had those difficult periods. At times we defended well, we showed a lot of solidarity and unlucky for us we couldn’t score that goal, especially in the first 15/20 minutes.
Positives to take?
At the moment it’s more frustrating because we knew how difficult this game was and I believe that we played at times some really good football. But the frustration really was to concede those three goals on the set pieces because you expect, especially here, to concede in open play. there was a lack of concentration at times and we made that.
Performance of Benteke?
Christian was like all the players. He worked well out of possession and every time there was a place to run in behind he did it. At times he got the ball and times he didn’t. To create the number of chances we did needed a good team performance, and Christian was like the rest of the players, not conceding a goal in open play is a credit to the team from Christian back to Vincent.
Zaha frustrated during the game
We didn’t speak. The situation where he managed to go through on the one vs one and he was in a situation where we had the advantage to create a situation and they make a really smart foul and they didn’t get punished. That’s one of the reasons for the frustration.
