Arne Slot singles out unsung Liverpool hero for praise after big Man City win

Arne Slot says Liverpool coach Aaron Briggs deserves all the credit for their pivotal opening goal against Manchester City.

The Reds have one hand on the title after opening up a huge 11-point lead at the Premier League summit on Sunday after beating the reigning champions 2-0 at The Etihad courtesy of goals from Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai.

It was Salah's 14th minute opener that set Slot's men on the road to victory. A well-worked set-piece routine saw Szoboszlai feed a short corner directly into Salah's path, with the Egyptian's deflected strike beating Ederson in the home goal.

And speaking post-match, Slot made it clear that it was Briggs, the club's individual development coach, who should be getting all the plaudits for that one.

"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 said of Briggs. "I always say, people might not know it over here yet, but if you go to Holland then people say, ‘There he 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.

"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."

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Ironically, Liverpool's title rivals, Arsenal, have established themselves as the Premier League's set-piece kings, with their specialist coach, Nicolas Jover, earning plenty of plaudits over the past couple of seasons.

But Slot hinted it's likely we'll be hearing more of Briggs and his work now that he and his coaching team have settled into their roles.

The Dutchman continued: "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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