The Reds’ 18-match unbeaten run was brought to an end in Wales as Alfie Mawson’s first-half goal secured victory for the home side.
The visitors toiled in search of an equaliser – registering 21 efforts at goal, though just four were on target – and were left further frustrated when Roberto Firmino’s 94th-minute header came back off the post and Adam Lallana couldn’t turn in the rebound.
Read on for a summary of the manager’s post-match press conference…
On his reaction to the result and the performance…
I am more frustrated about the performance than the result – the result is always a result of the performance. We were just not good enough tonight, especially in the first half. We did not play how we wanted to play, we didn’t keep the positions, we didn’t stretch the formation. We didn’t keep the right positions we wanted to do to cause them more problems – and then we gave them the opportunity to score, the second ball after a set-piece. We defended the first set-piece already but then gave them the opportunity to make another one from it and they scored with that.
That was then exactly what Swansea wanted tonight – it was not Swansea’s job tonight to play fantastic football, they needed to fight and we actually wanted to fight as well but we had the ball much more often and we needed to have a plan for it. We had a plan, how you hopefully saw in the second half when we went back to what we wanted to do from the beginning. It was much more difficult [than] if we had done it from the beginning because they now had exactly what they wanted, the stadium was there and their confidence grew and ours was not really there. With each minute the pressure increased and increased, so that was the situation.
We had chances even in the first half – how I said, we lost the game in the first half but we had chances. We had Mo Salah alone in front of the goal. I didn’t expect tonight that we [would not] play our best football, but you have to do the right things in the right moment to deserve to win a game like this. How I felt, we didn’t deserve it – we could have scored the goal in the last seconds; it was a good situation and unlucky for us, but if we get the point it doesn’t make the game a percentage better.
On the difference between Swansea’s display tonight and in their 5-0 defeat at Anfield on Boxing Day…
I said after the Boxing Day game that it was a difficult game for us but we scored in the right moments and then it opened the game between us and Swansea, but they’re now in a good moment and fighting. We didn’t score and that’s a problem. We gave them an opportunity to score and then that’s exactly the game a team like Swansea in this situation needs – to fight for your life, block each shot, you need the post, the crossbar, all that. I like that, but of course we are not here to help Swansea in this moment, we were here to win the game and that’s why the result… yes, that will come up a little later, but the performance in the first half was not even close to what we wanted to do. Second half was then a little bit better, we did more often what we wanted to do, so we had the situations but didn’t use them, but normally you need to start like that and then you have more influence on the result. So we needed to strike back and today the game was not long enough for us.
On whether the team had the right mindset after beating Manchester City in their last outing…
We had enough time obviously. What can we do? We spoke about it before, there would be a lot of challenges, playing against top of the table then bottom of the table. Everyone is talking very positive, fantastic football, the training week was outstanding, another little trap. You think ‘wow, everything is fantastic’, we knew about that. I have to watch the game back unfortunately, and then maybe I will know a little bit more about it but I had not one second this feeling. But yes, part of mindset is offensive things. We talk about tactical discipline and everybody thinks it’s about defence, that’s right, it’s a big part, but as well it’s offensive things, especially when you are a possession team like we are in a game like this. It’s clear where you start, where you have to be in each moment. It’s not mathematics but it’s clear where we can cause them problems. Swansea knows to win this game today they needed our help and unfortunately we helped them.