Arne Slot highlights what made the ‘difference’ for Liverpool last night; the stats back it up

Arne Slot has highlighted what made ‘the biggest difference’ for Liverpool on Wednesday night in comparison to some other matches this season.

The Reds claimed a hard-fought and much-needed victory away to Sunderland courtesy of a 61st-minute winner from Virgil van Dijk, whose header from a Mo Salah corner kick was too powerful for Habib Diarra on the goalline to keep out.

The nature of how the three points were earned was reflected in the captain’s post-match comments as he saluted a ‘great win’ which was achieved by ‘hard work’ on a ‘difficult pitch’ in torrential rain at the Stadium of Light.

Slot proclaims set-piece ‘difference’

Speaking to reporters after the match, Slot pointed out how – in contrast to several other games this season – Liverpool tasted joy from set pieces rather than being undone by them.

The Reds boss said (via liverpoolfc.com): “In the end we needed a set piece to score, and we usually have against these teams 10 set pieces, but we usually – and people from Liverpool can tell you – don’t score from set pieces.

“Tonight we did and that’s the biggest difference to Burnley at home… I can come up with all these [examples]; Leeds away, Leeds at home – all these games.”

Liverpool have improved massively on set pieces in recent weeks

Set pieces have been Liverpool’s kryptonite for much of this season, with Aaron Briggs (the specialist coach in that area) leaving the club at the end of December and Slot saying as recently as two weeks ago that his team have been a ‘disaster’ from dead-ball routines in the current campaign.

Those comments came in the aftermath of conceding a stoppage-time winner from a long throw-in at Bournemouth, but as Lewis Steele highlighted in an article for the Daily Mail after last night’s match, the Reds have actually improved considerably in that regard of late.

The journalist pointed out that Van Dijk’s winner at Sunderland is already the eighth set-piece goal scored by LFC in 2026, with just two conceded from dead-ball situations in that time, a welcome inversion of the frightening trend which had been prevalent before the turn of the year.

Liverpool showed a defensive steel on Wearside which has often been lacking in this underwhelming campaign, although Slot made it clear that he was unimpressed with how many scorable chances his team passed up last night, which would’ve cost them had it not been for the skipper’s intervention.

The result at the Stadium of Light was no thing of beauty, but it was never going to be. Instead, the Reds displayed the kind of attritional qualities which could serve them very well as they seek to clinch Champions League qualification in the final third of the season.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Sunderland press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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