Arne Slot verdict about Liverpool's second half.

Arne Slot press conference: Second-half performance at Ipswich, Salah, Gravenberch

On the changes made at half-time...

We as a team made a big change at half-time because we came out totally different to how we had come out in the first half. I have to give credit to Ipswich as well because I think they were aggressive, they were not afraid, they were playing one-v-one all over the pitch to defend us. Then it is about winning your duels and winning your second balls. I think they won more than us and that's why it was absolutely an equal game in the first half.

Second half, we won more duels, we won more second balls and we played more balls in behind because if the other team takes the risk of playing one-v-one and you have the likes of Luis Diaz, Mo Salah and Diogo Jota then use them, play the balls in behind. That's what we did better in the second half and from there on gaps opened up and you could see how good and how well we could play in possession.

On how long Salah can keep playing at the highest level after setting another Premier League record...

If I see what he does to keep his body as it is and to be ready to play every game, I think there are many more years inside of him to play. But, if you're OK with it, I am looking now at Brentford and not at the end of the season!

On what he was disappointed with in the first half...

No, [it was] not so much that we lost the balls too much – I think we lost far too many duels. They were very aggressive, which led to three yellow cards – but in a good way aggressive – and we didn't cope with that well enough, in my opinion. That's what I said to them at half-time, if you want to win here then you need to go a step up in terms of winning your duels first and make a fight out of it, instead of accepting that every time we play a ball long that the ball ends up in our 16 again. It helped us as well because Ibou Konate came in because he, from the start, won his duels against the No.9 and that gave us also a lot of ball possession and two goals, but we could have scored a few more, though.

On Ryan Gravenberch's performance in the No.6 role...

For me, it is always about the team so if individual performance is really good, that is because the team does really well. Everybody is emphasising on the goal Mo scored and the assist he had, but both goals were from a build-up situation where we started one time with Virgil [van Dijk] and the other time, I think, even with Alisson [Becker]. So, we need to make sure these players, the attackers, come into promising positions and the team needs to help them for that.

It's the same with Ryan. Of course, Ryan is attacking-minded but if we play with him then the rest of the team needs to help him as well. It takes a lot of effort for the attackers and the attacking midfielders to help him there, but what we do know with Ryan is that he can play the ball forward if he sees options to do so. That helped us today, especially in the second half.