IPSWICH, England — Liverpool manager Arne Slot said Mohamed Salah can continue his record-breaking run of goals in the opening match of the Premier League season for years to come after helping the team to a 2-0 win at Ipswich Town on Saturday.
Salah scored Liverpool's second goal and set up Diogo Jota for the first on the hour mark, giving Slot a fine start to his time at the club in the post-Jürgen Klopp era. Salah's 65th-minute goal means he has now scored nine times in the opening matchday of the season, breaking the record tied with Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney and Alan Shearer.
His contract with Liverpool expires at the end of the season, and while Slot would not give any further details about his talisman's future after the match, he said Salah's form was no surprise given the amount of work he puts in.
“Yeah [you] “Look at what he does to keep his body the way it is, there are many more years in him,” Slot said.[Regarding the future,] “I'm thinking about Brentford and not the end of the season.”
Ipswich put Liverpool under heavy pressure and had the better of the chances in the first half, managing the only two shots on target of the match at that stage.
Slot made a change at half-time, bringing on Ibrahima Konaté for Jarell Quansah, and Liverpool upped the tempo in the second half. Slot was pleased with the way they reacted, but also said the first 45 minutes did not live up to his expectations.
“I have inherited a very, very good team with many great individual players, but these players also have to understand that what they contributed in the first half is not enough,” said the new coach. “And if they contribute [the] “They can play to their full potential, very well indeed. And that's what they showed today in the second half. But it was good to see the goals we scored.”
“When I started here, there were a lot of things that [were] They told me, but one of them was Jürgen [Klopp] I hated the start of the game at 12:30 pm
“The team showed that they hated kick-off at 12:30pm because we weren't into the game in the first half. And the second thing is that, as people told me, there are no easy games in the Premier League. And today we showed that, if you play against the newly promoted team and they are able to put up the fight they put up in the first half, it makes it very difficult for us.”
For Ipswich, this was their first game back in the top flight in 22 years, after successive promotions under Kieran McKenna. The manager was pleased with the team's first-half performance as they prepare to travel to Manchester City next Saturday.
“There are a lot of positives to take away, especially from the first half,” McKenna said. “We had a good performance in the first half, we made Liverpool a difficult game, we pressed really well, we were aggressive, physical and we kept possession, we did some good things.” [I] We think we gave a strong team a lot of problems. The challenge for us is that we have to do that for the 90 minutes, or in the periods when we can't be like that, we have to manage the game.
“There were many more positives. The second half was difficult, Liverpool got into the rhythm and the game slipped away from us. The players will come away from the game with more confidence knowing they can compete at this level.”
