MILAN 鈥 On a night that saw Liverpool鈥檚 Arne Slot and AC Milan鈥檚 Paulo Fonseca each take the managerial reins in a Champions League game with their new teams for the first time, their experiences could not have been more different.
Slot guided Liverpool to a resounding 3-1 victory over Fonseca鈥檚 Milan at San Siro, as his team remained calm after a shaky start, storming back after conceding a goal in the opening three minutes.
鈥淭o come back so strong and dominant, it was a deserved victory,鈥 said Slot, who replaced retired manager Juergen Klopp at the Merseyside club. 鈥淭his is an evening I will remember in the future. Hopefully many more times like this will come as Liverpool manager.鈥
Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai scored for Liverpool after Christian Pulisic capitalised on some disorganised defending by the Reds for Milan鈥檚 lone goal.
A day after Fonseca said his men would have to be 鈥渄efensively perfect鈥 against Liverpool, they were porous and far from perfect. And it could have been significantly worse with Liverpool enjoying 11 shots on target to the home side鈥檚 two.
鈥淲e played against Liverpool, a great team,鈥 Fonseca, who replaced Stefano Pioli at Milan, told Sky. 鈥淲e started the match well offensively and defensively, then we conceded two goals from set pieces which changed the game.
鈥淲hen details are missing we can have problems doing what we prepare in training, Liverpool are more of a team than us, we have to work to play without problems for 70/80 minutes.鈥
Asked about conceding almost identical goals from two centre backs — Konate and Van Dijk — Fonseca said: 鈥淔or the first goal we had a man on Van Dijk, we had prepared this. He was free, it鈥檚 true, but the central defenders had to be taken with individual marking.鈥
The two managers have had wildly different starts to their respective leagues this season as well, with Slot鈥檚 men winning their first three games before a shock 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday to sit fourth in the Premier League.
AC Milan sit 10th in the Serie A table with one win in four games. 鈥 Reuters
