Arne Slot earned his first win as Liverpool manager with a 1-0 victory over Real Betis courtesy of an excellent Dominik Szoboszlai finish in Pittsburgh.
The Reds were beaten 1-0 by Preston, external in a behind-closed-doors friendly at their training ground earlier this month but the post-Jurgen Klopp era is now up and running with their first win on their US tour.
Hungarian midfielder Szoboszlai opened the scoring after 34 minutes by sweeping in Mohamed Salah’s through ball, while Betis striker Juanmi missed two chances in front of 42,679 fans.
Liverpool lost midfielder Curtis Jones on the half hour mark with Slot saying it was too early to say how bad the injury was.
How did Liverpool play?
Slot has taken over from Klopp, who was in charge for nine years, and the German’s often dubbed ‘heavy metal football’ looked a little more soft rock under their new Dutch manager.
The changes in the style of play came in a fluid 4-2-4 formation and the Reds played without a striker.
Again, it was partly down to the limited personnel, but Klopp’s gegenpressing style turned into a slower possession-based approach, typically favoured by Johan Cryuff-influenced Dutch coaches.
Slot delivered his instructions at the Pittsburgh Steelers’s half-full Acrisure Stadium while constantly stood in the technical area and moved players into position with hand gestures and measured shouts.
Harvey Elliot and Szoboszlai took turns playing in the attacking midfielder number 10 role, so Liverpool were effectively without a striker for the majority of the game.
“I think during the season you will see us playing with a real striker but at this moment we have no-one with Darwin [Nunez] unavailable,” Slot said.
“We played with two number 10s and put them in the position they will play during the season. That was maybe out of necessity.
“But for the rest of the style of play, we tried to build from the back, that is our style to control the game, not concede constant counter attacks.
Source – Liverpool: Dominik Szoboszlai scores in 1-0 win over Real Betis in Pittsburgh – BBC Sport
