Fulham boss Marco Silva was certainly an animated figure on the sidelines at Craven Cottage during Liverpool’s visit to west London.
Arne Slot’s Liverpool side arrived in the capital without a defeat on the road so far this season, a record that came to an abrupt end.
Liverpool did go ahead through a brilliant Alexis Mac Allister goal, but uncharacteristic sloppy defending then invited Fulham back into the game.
Ibrahima Konate was guilty of being out of position for Fulham’s first goal – perhaps because he was too concerned about helping Curtis Jones.
And Andrew Robertson won’t need reminding about the role he played in Fulham’s second, a performance which proved why Liverpool want to sign Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth.
Marco Silva says why he was impressed by Liverpool in the second half
Despite beating Liverpool 3-2, Silva did still praise Slot’s side when speaking to Sky Sports shortly after full-time.
Silva was impressed with how Liverpool reacted in the second half, crediting the way Slots’ team were able to progress the ball quickly from defensive situations.
He said: “To compete with a team like Liverpool, you can talk about tactical things but you can’t just do it without being connected with the inspiration, a high-tempo and a team dynamic.
“The way they press, the way they react and can move quickly from a defensive situation – and we saw that in the second half.
“The way we put them under pressure and created chances, was really good. To see Sess score again in an important game for us was great.”
Arne Slot wasn’t happy with Liverpool’s defending
Of course, there was also a controversial moment in the first half when Richard Keys thought Fulham deserved a penalty for Caoimhin Kelleher’s rash challenge.
But when reflecting on Liverpool’s performance to Match of the Day, Slot himself was more concerned about the goals his side had conceded that were not up to ‘standards’.
Slot said: “It’s not often we concede three goals let alone in one game or 15 minutes. We could have prevented it.
“We scored a good goal but apart from that the second half performance was much more what we’re like.
“Conceding three goals like we did is not of the standards of Liverpool. We were creating chance after chance after chance [towards the end].
“In the end we lacked time to make up for the three mistakes we made in the first half.”
A rare blip for Liverpool in the league, who surely won’t have any worries about their defeat against Fulham in the bigger context of the title-race, where they remain 11 points ahead.
