Arne Slot reacts to Liverpool defeat to Preston as new boss makes 'important' point

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has been pleased with the way that his new players have responded to his training methods and tactical ideas over the course of his few weeks in charge.

While the Reds lost 1-0 to Preston North End in a behind-closed-doors friendly match on Friday, the Liverpool boss is adamant that things are heading in the right direction. He was pleased with many aspects of the game against Ryan Lowe's Championship side.

"After two weeks of tough training sessions, it's important to play a game as well," Slot told LFCTV post-match. "The most important thing was that everybody was fit before the game and they stayed fit during the game as well.

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"It has been a good two weeks. Unfortunately, the result today was not what we wanted but they stayed fit, many of them got minutes, and I saw a lot of young players who got a few minutes. That is a good thing."

"Definitely," Slot responded when asked if he was seeing the things on the pitch that the team has been working on in training. "I've seen this a lot during the training sessions; a bit more than today but they also had to deal with the playing style of the opponent.

"Like I said, we controlled the game completely and we only conceded one shot. We had some good build-up and some good chances in the first half. Second half, I didn't think we did that much which is normal because there were a lot of young players who didn't play in their normal positions as well.

"We couldn't ask for more from the boys in the first two weeks. They worked really hard and tried to implement the ideas and it is not that we only bring new ideas — a lot things here were really good. We were a bit unlucky to lose 1-0."

Robbie Brady scored the only goal of the match. His long-range effort beat Czech goalkeeper Vitezslav Jaros in the first half and Mohamed Salah and co could not find an equalizer.

"Every session and every game gives you new ideas of where you have to work on but there are still 10 or 11 players who played many minutes last season ," Slot said. "They are not in the building yet.

"It was good to see some young players do some good things. The ones we have, they stayed fit and showed some good things today and especially in the last two weeks. That is something to take into our USA tour ."

Liverpool.com says: The result is nothing to be concerned about for the Reds. As Slot says, it is early days. There are still plenty of senior stars to come back into the team and this was a match mainly played with youth products getting the chance to impress.