Arne Slot admits Liverpool win vs Wolves has given him 'long-term' issue to consider

Arne Slot said that it was important for Liverpool to win playing ugly after the Reds scraped past Wolves, but admitted that, in the long term, it is crucial that the team marries results with good performances.

Ibrahima Konate opened the scoring at Molineux with a header in first-half injury time, but required a Mohamed Salah penalty to clinch all three points after Rayan Ait-Nouri had equalized for the hosts.

Liverpool moved to the top of the Premier League table with its 2-1 victory, but the display was far from convincing and a better opponent might have punished Slot's side.

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Asked by Sky Sports whether results were more important than performances, Slot responded: "For the short term yes, but for the long term you also have to look at the performance. We didn't start well, but we have to give credit to Wolves and to Gary O'Neil, they had a really good game plan, had a week to prepare and they did really well. We had some problems in the first 15 to 20 minutes, but then we took control of the game, and it wasn't that strange when we scored, because just before the goal we had a big chance with Dominik Szoboszlai as well."

Wolves was the better team during the opening exchanges of the match, and Slot recognized that his players needed to increase their intensity in order to take control of proceedings.

"It's not always about tactics," Slot said about his side's slow start to the match. "It's also about how aggressively you press, how strongly you win the duels. Second half we were better when it came to pressing, maybe the tactics were a bit better from my side, but it also helped that the energy was much higher than the way we started the first 15 to 20 minutes.

"I've spoken about this a few times already that sometimes I feel we have to be more patient, especially against a low-block team. I'm not saying Wolves were that today... but after the first 15 to 20 minutes, in general we were much more patient and we controlled the game much better than in the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes."