Arne Slot has detailed the reasoning behind his first-half tactics which didn’t work out, as Liverpool lost 2-1 against Crystal Palace.With Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Florian Wirtz on the pitch, Liverpool lined up in a formation close to 4-2-2-2.Mo Salah and Alexander Isak were the Reds’ most advanced players, ahead of Szoboszlai and Wirtz who were the two most attacking midfielders.This left just Conor Bradley and Milos Kerkez to provide the Reds’ width, though, a problem with which Liverpool struggled to deal before the break. Slot explained why he chose not to start Cody Gakpo, saying: “We wanted to overload the midfield with Florian Wirtz in the first half – that’s why we didn’t start with Cody.“But if you are 1-0 down and need a goal, you prefer to have width on both sides, and that’s why we brought Cody in.”Once Gakpo came on at half time, Liverpool returned to a more regular 4-2-3-1, as Wirtz began to get the ball in more threatening positions.Later in the second half, the head coach also sent on Federico Chiesa and Rio Ngumoha, as the Reds pushed for a late equaliser which eventually came from the former.Slot added: “Later on, we kept on bringing in offensive players that can score goals, taking the risk, because you’re already 1-0 down.“And again, we scored. ‘Deserved’ is maybe not [the right word] to say, but if you base only on the second half and the chances we had. We were just discussing Isak, Florian Wirtz of course had a very big chance as well.“We were closer, closer to scoring a goal. So yeah, that was the reason to bring Cody in, because the way we played the first half wasn’t as I was hoping for before the game.”As the Dutchman said, Liverpool did improve in the second half, producing 1.87 xG compared to 0.37 xG before the break.However, Palace retained their threat and made Liverpool pay for a lapse in concentration at the end through Eddie Nketiah’s late winner.“I think the second half was a much better performance from us,” Slot told the press.“We created chances, which not many teams do here or if Palace plays away. It’s very hard to create a chance. We created quite a lot for us to score the goal.“And when we did, [there was] limited time to play and to concede another set-piece goal is then as disappointing as our first half was.”