Arne Slot echoes Jurgen Klopp's views on Premier League 'crime' as he reveals his message to Liverpool stars at half-time against Ipswich

Klopp would infamously rail against Liverpool consistently being scheduled to play in 12:30pm kick-offs - even calling them a "crime" - but, in the club's first Premier League game since the German's departure, the Reds were again slated to start the day's action. The Reds faced a spirited Ipswich Town side, playing in their first top-flight game for over 20 years, and won 2-0.

Both of the Reds goals came within five minutes. Diogo Jota scored the opener on the hour mark and Mohamed Salah added a second in the 65th minute. Liverpool struggled through the first half, though, and Slot was ruthless, as he hooked Jarrel Quansah at the break in a bid for fluency.

Slot said: "I learned today why Jurgen Klopp didn’t like 12.30 kick-offs! I didn’t like them at half-time! I also learned that it's true that there are no easy games in the Premier League and that we need to play like we did in the second half if we want to win. We lost far too many duels. They were very aggressive – which led to three yellow cards – but they were aggressive in a good way.

"We didn't cope with that well enough in my opinion. I said at half-time: 'If you want to win here you need to step up in terms of winning your duels first and make a fight out of it.' When we started winning our duels that gave us a lot of possession and led to our two goals."

Liverpool are next in action on Sunday in a 4:30pm kick-off against Brentford. They then face Manchester United on September 1.