Arne Slot exposed by his own ‘long ball’ comments as embarrassing Liverpool numbers shown in Man Utd win

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Manchester United consigned under pressure Liverpool boss Arne Slot to a fourth consecutive defeat.

Even before kick-off at Anfield, Ruben Amorim appeared to seize the mental battle ahead of Arne Slot.

Slot complained about Manchester United’s team selection, bizarrely moaning that Ruben Amorim had changed his starting line-up.

“We’ve seen Sesko play the last three, four five or six times, but they go to Liverpool they change the line-up. That’s not the first where we’ve faced a team and they’ve done that.”

Slot had plenty to say after Manchester United’s 2-1 victory at Anfield, with Harry Maguire scoring the winning goal.

Arne Slot complained about Man Utd tactics

Speaking after the game, Arne Slot complained about Manchester United’s style of play against Liverpool.

He told reporters: “It is always difficult to play against a team that defends in a low block and mainly plays the long ball. It makes it even more difficult when you go one down after one minute when one of our players are on the floor.

“If you would have told me before the game that against the low block, against so many long balls, that we would have created as many chances as we did I would have not expected us to lose. But that is what we did.”

However, numbers from the game expose Arne Slot’s comments as plain wrong, with Liverpool playing more long balls than Manchester United did.

Liverpool completed 27 long balls during the game compared to 18 from Manchester United, data from Sofascore shows.

Ruben Amorim deserves credit for adapting

Arne Slot’s complaints about Manchester United the long ball clearly ignored the prevalence with his own team used the tactics.

Yet setting Liverpool aside, Ruben Amorim actually deserves credit for mixing up his gameplan a little bit and adding some unpredictability to Manchester United’s approach.

Amorim has faced criticism for failing to adapt his tactics to the Premier League since his arrival at Old Trafford.

Adding a long ball element to United’s approach is one way to change it up and give opponents a little extra to think about.

And as shown up by Arne Slot’s moaning, it clearly caused Liverpool some problems, while United coped pretty well with Liverpool’s desperation to get back into the game.