Andy Robertson makes surprising admission on Liverpool set-piece plan after Man City win

Andy Robertson has revealed that Liverpool only worked on their marvellous set-piece routine which saw them take the lead against Manchester City one day before the game.

The Reds opened the scoring after 14 minutes on Sunday, as Mo Salah bagged his 25th Premier League goal of the season. Salah then set up Dominik Szoboszlai to make it 2-0 later in first half and that's how it stayed.

Salah was returning the favour for Szoboszlai, who'd been the middle man for their well-worked corner kick. Alexis Mac Allister drilled a low pass towards the midfielder, who'd managed to get free after Robertson used his body to block a City defender.

Szoboszlai's precise flick sent the ball into Salah's path and the forward lashed his shot home via a deflection from City's Nathan Ake. It looked like a heavily rehearsed routine but Robertson mentioned post-match that Liverpool had only practiced it on Saturday.

Having been asked about Salah, Robertson told Match of the Day: "He's been unbelievable and obviously our set-piece routine worked which is pleasing for us. We worked on it yesterday and everyone had a role to play. Mo got the glory of putting it in the back of the net because we don't want anyone else over it like that."

Also after the win, which sent Liverpool 11 points clear at the top of the table, Arne Slot heaped praise on Liverpool coach Aaron Briggs, who was credited with the set-piece routine. "He has done his work very, very, very well and you don't always see the result of that during games because many times we were close to scoring," Slot hailed.

I always say, people might not know it over here yet, but if you go to Holland then people say, 'There he (Slot) is again about his set-pieces'. But if you want to win a big game then you need to have a neutral balance in set-pieces or a positive one. So, if we go to Villa away and they score [from a set piece] and we don't, it is so hard to win against a Villa or a Chelsea or an Arsenal.

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"And today it was the opposite: we scored from a set-piece and that gives you such a boost for this game because, at that moment of time, it wasn't that we were dominating the game. It wasn't expected that we could score at any second, so yeah, set-pieces are vital.

"We started with a new group of people this season and we need to give them a bit of time because I think - that's also what you see at Arsenal, when they started working it wasn't immediate, it takes a bit of time before you see the result - and that's what we're hoping for in the upcoming 11 [games] as well."

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