Slot disappointed after Villa 2-2 Liverpool
19/02/2025
Villa Park, Birmingham, UK
19/02/2025
Villa Park, Birmingham, UK
Category
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SportsTranscript
00:00You're not interested in all of that?
00:03Seven.
00:05Seven? And the other one?
00:07Still 2-1, so they're going into extra time?
00:10Yeah.
00:12Jürgen?
00:13What satisfaction do you take from coming away with a point,
00:16or is the feeling more about the two points that got away
00:19and the chances that got away tonight?
00:21That last thing.
00:23The only reason why we could be happy with a 2-2
00:29was that they got the last chance of the game,
00:32and maybe their third chance after scoring two.
00:36So that could be the only reason that we would say,
00:39OK, a point is good to take, but for the rest, I think,
00:42for everything else, I'm not happy with the 2-2.
00:47I wasn't happy at all being 2-1 down at half-time,
00:50that didn't reflect, in my opinion, the first half at all.
00:54But, yeah, it's the thing of football,
00:56if you can see the set-piece, things can change quite quickly.
00:59I know in another interview you said that there's one player in particular
01:02who's pretty down in the dressing room at the moment,
01:04I'm guessing that's Darwin with the chance that he had.
01:07What was your view of that chance, what could he have done better?
01:10Because it's easy for us to sit here and say he could have dinked it,
01:12but he could have dinked it over Emi Martinez,
01:14but he came sprawling at his feet later on as well,
01:16so what is it that you need to see?
01:18No, what I saw was an unbelievable pass from Conor Bradley,
01:22and what a power run from Dominic Subbersly,
01:26who made, in my opinion, the perfect choice to square it,
01:30because from a 1-1 to the goalkeeper, he made it an open goal chance.
01:36Yeah, and then Darwin was, of course, it was not his best leg,
01:40he's right-footed, of course, but it was still a big chance.
01:44And, yeah, very unlucky,
01:48and I was hoping that he could have got another one,
01:51because a player like him probably wouldn't miss two chances in a row,
01:55and he was very close afterwards when he went towards Martinez again.
02:01But, yeah, Martinez made a great sliding tackle to win the ball.
02:05I think we were all disappointed,
02:07but it's normal that a player that missed a chance like this
02:10is always a bit more disappointed than the rest.
02:14Did you check on Conor Bradley, how serious do you think the injury is initially?
02:19Yeah, it is difficult, but he felt a bit when he made a sprint,
02:24tried to continue but had to go out.
02:27All the time with injuries, I always say if a player wants to go out himself,
02:31that's not a promising sign.
02:33So that will probably lead to the fact that he's, for 99.9 per cent sure,
02:38not available for City.
02:40And I didn't expect him to get Newcastle as well,
02:42and then we have to see if it's one or two weeks, or if it's going to be even longer.
02:50Does every team naturally have a little bit of a dip in the season?
02:54Do you feel like that's what you're having at the moment?
02:57Is that a natural thing?
02:59We have a dip, why?
03:01Just in terms of results, in terms of performance.
03:04It's a hard season, you've been brilliant every season,
03:06but does every team naturally have a little bit of a dip?
03:09I think every game has its own story.
03:11I think in terms of performance, we weren't brilliant at all at Everton,
03:16but for obvious reasons we were very unlucky to lose over there.
03:21Sorry, it felt like losing, but it was a draw to come away with a draw over there.
03:27Today I liked our performance a lot, much, much more than I liked our performance against Wolves.
03:33From what I liked the most, playing the ball, bringing the ball out from the back,
03:37creating chances.
03:40So, no, I don't feel like that at all.
03:42I think if you go away at Villa, that's always a difficult fixture.
03:45If you start the season, you know,
03:47oh, Villa away, that's a difficult one,
03:49oh, City away, that's a difficult one.
03:51So, performance-wise, not a dip at all today, in my opinion,
03:57but you might disagree.
03:59And what we must not do, and we've done that a bit too often now,
04:03is that we don't get what we deserve.
04:06And if you look at all the chances, if you put them in a row from us and from them,
04:09I think it's clear which team should have won this game,
04:11and we must not make a habit out of that,
04:15because it happened a bit too much now.
04:18And still, we are eight points clear with Arsenal a game in hand.
04:23With Salah, I mean, the goal and assist tonight,
04:25I mean, it's just his fingers were up and down,
04:27but he really feels like he's on that mission every game.
04:31It's just remarkable for him.
04:33Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:34Yeah, he is, but not only him.
04:36I think I couldn't have asked for more today from all the players.
04:40They've worked so incredibly hard in a fixture list like we have,
04:44with so many games to be played,
04:46two difficult away games at Everton and here,
04:50emotional games as well, because not only the quality you face,
04:53you also play against the crowds,
04:55because they are really helpful at Everton and here again as well.
05:01But Mo, yeah, great goal,
05:03although Jot deserves a lot of compliments for that goal as well.
05:06And the second one, yeah, I was maybe a bit lucky because it got deflected,
05:10but we were there so many times in that period of time
05:14that it felt to me that we definitely deserved that 2-2 at that moment.
05:20Can you just explain the formation today with Curtis and Dominic?
05:24It seemed slightly different.
05:26Why did you do it and did you think it worked?
05:29No, result-wise, going 2-1 in at half-time,
05:33you could say it didn't work.
05:35Performance-wise, it worked really, really well,
05:38because we totally don't deserve to go 2-1 down at half-time,
05:42again, in my opinion.
05:44The reason why we did this is that Lucio played three games in seven days.
05:51I played him at Plymouth because I knew I had Cody,
05:55so I could switch them around if needed.
05:58But then Cody got injured in Everton because he got a big knock.
06:03And all of a sudden you have only one winger left,
06:06so that's why for today we felt this could work.
06:09And I think it did if you look at the amount of chances we created
06:12and how we played the game.
06:14But, yeah, result-wise, you never know if you would have done differently
06:18what would have happened.
06:19But it wasn't smart to play Lucio 90 minutes again.
06:22The same way I had to take out Jot and Trent,
06:26both coming back from injuries.
06:28Jot hasn't played for four or five months,
06:31it's his second start now after four or five months.
06:35So, yeah, you have to take care of them,
06:37especially in a period of time where you play so many games.
06:45See you tomorrow?
06:46Oh, yeah.
06:4812 hours.