Szoboszlai goal gives Slot first win as Liverpool boss

Arne Slot earned his first win as Liverpool manager with a 1-0 victory over Real Betis courtesy of an excellent Dominik Szoboszlai finish in Pittsburgh.

The Reds were beaten 1-0 by Preston in a behind-closed-doors friendly at their training ground earlier this month but the post-Jurgen Klopp era is now up and running with their first win on their US tour.

Hungarian midfielder Szoboszlai opened the scoring after 34 minutes by sweeping in Mohamed Salah’s through ball, while Betis striker Juanmi missed two chances in front of 42,679 fans.

Liverpool lost midfielder Curtis Jones on the half hour mark with Slot saying it was too early to say how bad the injury was.

The Reds face Arsenal in Philadelphia on Thursday and then take on Manchester United in Columbia on Sunday, 4 August.

Slot has taken over from Klopp, who was in charge for nine years, and the German’s often dubbed ‘heavy metal football’ looked a little more soft rock under their new Dutch manager.

The changes in the style of play came in a fluid 4-2-4 formation and the Reds played without a striker.

Again, it was partly down to the limited personnel, but Klopp’s gegenpressing style turned into a slower possession-based approach, typically favoured by Johan Cryuff-influenced Dutch coaches.

Slot delivered his instructions at the Pittsburgh Steelers’s half-full Acrisure Stadium while constantly stood in the technical area and moved players into position with hand gestures and measured shouts.

Harvey Elliot and Szoboszlai took turns playing in the attacking midfielder number 10 role, so Liverpool were effectively without a striker for the majority of the game.

“I think during the season you will see us playing with a real striker but at this moment we have no-one with Darwin [Nunez] unavailable,” Slot said.

“We played with two number 10s and put them in the position they will play during the season. That was maybe out of necessity.

“But for the rest of the style of play, we tried to build from the back, that is our style to control the game, not concede constant counter attacks.

“That will hopefully be our style during the season and there were also many things we can improve but that’s normal after two weeks.”

It looked similar to the unenforced but successful tactical approach taken by Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag in the FA Cup final, with Bruno Fernandes up front in the win against Manchester City.

For Liverpool, it worked well given they had so few senior players. They dominated early on with shots from Fabio Carvalho, Salah and Wataru Endo, albeit from difficult positions. Elliot then scuffed the first real chance from a good Conor Bradley cutback, before Szoboszlai’s goal.

The second half was more of a non-event for the spectators as a host of youngsters disrupted the rhythm. Nabil Fekir hit the side netting from a good free-kick position and Carvalho had a shot saved by former Liverpool goalkeeper Adrian before coming off.

But it was an important exercise in fitness building, and introducing Slot’s style to his players, the supporters and football world before the new Premier League season starts.

Defender Bradley was the pick of the starters, linking well with Salah on the right flank and created the majority of the best chances.

Meanwhile, Carvalho, fresh from a loan spell at Hull City, looked determined to impress with a number of dangerous moments.

There was ultimately a total change in line up as youthful substitutes Trey Nyoni, Vítezslav Jaros, Tyler Morton, Harvey Blair, Ben Doak, Luke Chambers, Nat Phillips, Luca Stephenson, Owen Beck, Stefan Bajetic, Kaide Gordon and Lewis Koumas all came on in the second half.

Nyoni, 17, excelled as the first of the youngsters coming on for an injured Curtis Jones. He dictated the play in the middle of the pitch and also created a big chance for Blair.

The youthful squad was down to Liverpool’s policy to give their players from Euro 2024 and Copa America their full recommended three-week holiday, as dictated by players’ union FIFPro, when many rivals cut them short.

Ibrahim Konate and Diego Jota will return early, however, having had minimal involvement for their national teams.

The midfielder highlighted just how much he is enjoying Slot’s approach before kick-off but he came off injured in the 28th minute and went straight down the tunnel.

After the match, Slot played down concerns about Jones’ fitness saying: “I think it’s too early to tell [how bad it is]. He maybe could have played on, but I think maybe you could see he was not at 100%.”