Arne Slots verdict on West Ham 0-5 Liverpool: “It was pleasing to see”

Over five different goalscorers in the game…

I like to see that because relying on one player to score goals isn’t really helpful most of the time, although it’s nice to have someone who scores a lot of goals. But then to see that other people score goals and also endanger the other goal is gratifying. It’s not just who scores the goal, I also think the lead in front of the goal is very positive from our point of view.

What he thought of Liverpool’s overall performance…

Just like I would like it to be in an away game. I think it’s always the case, especially in the Premier League, that defense brings a lot with it. There are a lot of fans in every stadium we play. When Liverpool comes, the stadium is always sold out. They don’t need much reason to celebrate when Liverpool come into the game because when they already have an attack or a corner, the fans are already cheering, so you have to dampen that momentum as much as possible and not give anything away. I think there were only two, three or four minutes where Curtis lost the ball, Mo lost the ball and then we conceded a corner, which probably wasn’t a corner where the fans were a bit behind West Ham. By the way, I think we had West Ham and the crowd under control because we were so dominant.

On the absence of Federico Chiesa…

Federico I have said many times, we are working on two things, we are working on his match fitness and whenever we can we are trying to get him into the team. He was on the bench during the week and we thought it would be better for him to do a few extra training sessions rather than join us. It’s the constant balance we have to find to get him fitter and get him into the team.

Whether this is the “highest level” his team can achieve…

I think that the level you reach during the game always depends on the team you are playing against. West Ham were doing really well before our game today. They were in good spirits but West Ham don’t normally compete to win the league. I think you always have to take that into account. If you look at how satisfied you are with a performance; Away games are always difficult in the Premier League. Especially here, I think last season it was 2-2 if I remember correctly. It’s not an easy place to go, so it’s pleasing to see how we performed.

On the question of whether his team “moved up a level” in December…

Maybe we’re a little better, but it’s not like we’ve made huge gains. What we have improved is scoring goals. There were games where we could have scored a lot more goals but we didn’t because we missed a few chances. Even today I still think it was 3-0 at half-time, but after 10 or 15 minutes we could have easily scored three goals with the quality we have. The good thing is that in the last few weeks, whenever the opponent had a chance, they scored. Today they hit the crossbar and the post, so that’s a positive. In a season it is normal that sometimes you miss chances and sometimes after a certain time the other team gets a chance and scores. Then sometimes they need two, three or four and don’t score. That also brings with it a season. It’s good for us that we, maybe for the first time, maybe beat Tottenham 6-3, but that we have a win where it was clear the whole game that we were going to win this game than many others it was close until the end.