Remember me
Liverpool manager Arne Slot has been speaking to the press following the Reds' 3-2 defeat at the hands of Bournemouth.
After going 2-0 down early in the first half, Liverpool fought back to 2-2 with goals from Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai, before a 95th-minute suckerpunch, as Bournemouth's Amine Adli scored with virtually the last kick of the game.
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On conceding another late goal…
Yeah, frustrating, of course, because conceding a goal is always frustrating, but especially if there's no time left to come back into the game.
But I think it's safe to say that they could have scored the [third goal to make it] 3-2 also a little bit earlier. What I mean with that, I think after we scored the 2-2, a few players of ours ran out of energy and I cannot even criticise them for that because two days ago we had to play an away game in Europe.
We're the only team that played Champions League two days ago, we have another away game against one of the most intense teams in the league. And I mainly, as you probably see, play the same players because of the players we have available. That's then more difficult and and that's what you saw in the last 10 minutes. I think for the rest of the game, It was completely different. I think there we dominated the game.
On the seven minutes between two Bournemouth goals – and Van Dijk's role in the first one…
I don't think it's completely fair to Virgil to blame him for the first goal because I think you could say that throughout the game, how much impact the wind had on certain balls.
I don't exactly know [when], but [towards] the end of the game, Virgil hit a long ball towards Mo Salah and I was expecting it to go to the goalkeeper, but all of a sudden it fell to Mo. So, he wasn't the only one who had once in a while struggled with the wind.
That's not the first time this season that there has been seven minutes where I wouldn't even say we were struggling, but where the other team was [on top]. And in those seven minutes we conceded two, of course: the second one was when we were down to 10 because after the first goal, Joe Gomez had to go off with an injury, wanted to try, thought he could, but then he couldn't. And maybe that sums up our season. It's every time something else, it's every time something special how we concede, but we can't cheat and the only ones to blame is ourselves.
On tiredness…
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If Bournemouth had to run more than us, that is probably because we had 67 per cent ball possession or something like that. So, but credit to them, that's definitely also one of their strengths. I think they are top, top in almost every statistic when it comes to running.
That's why I think I have to credit my players. If you go 2-0 down. The way we did and again we showed the mentality and the fitness to come back into the game against one of the fittest teams in the league because, and they only have to play once a week, of course that helps.
And that's not an excuse because a club like Liverpool is used to playing three times a week, but we mainly do this with the same players and maybe last season it was a bit different. Last season we did not have three long-term injuries as we have now. As you could see in our lineup, I decided not to play Hugo [Ekitike]. That wasn't because I didn't like him or he wasn't good against Marseille, that's simply because I have only one no.9 available for the upcoming weeks and months.
He was out two weeks ago. It was always so many games to play, you have to manage his minutes and I think for Jeremie Frimpong, it's safe to say the same. In the end, just before I took him off, I could see the energy running out of him a little bit as well. So yeah, the end result is that you then play two players, not in their favorite position with Wataru [Endu] and Dom [Szoboszlai]. By the way, they did well, but it's the reality of this moment.
On conceding while down to 10 men…
No, I tried to scream, Towards them to put the ball out of play, but actually we were quite comfortable. I think we kept the ball for quite a long time. And then when we lost it, it was the opposite. Bournemouth kept it, which is a bit easier maybe if you play against them.
But even if you are down to 10, I think the way we conceded that goal was, was not specifically because we were down to 10 men. It's just a winger that is surprising our full-back in a situation where we could have done better. But of course, maybe when we were when we had 11 [men], the player that had the assist couldn't have gone as far as he could now. So yeah.
On signing a new defender…
Are we now short? Well, we've been short before but… that's your opinion. Joe got a knock from Alisson, his knee went into, I think somewhere over here [gestures to his side]. I think it was bone on bone.
So yeah, you could see was just not able to continue and Ali had swelling in his knee. I don't know if Joe is going to train in two or three days, that's difficult for me to say, but, it was clear that he couldn't go on today.
On Andrew Robertson…
What do you think my answer is going to be? What do you think? Have I ever said anything about transfers in front of this microphone? No, so my answer is always the same and it's quite boring to always give the same answer. By the way, my press conference after the game is also constantly the same. And the answer is we don't talk about transfers in public, not as long as there's something to say.
On Milos Kerkez going off at half-time…
No, there was not an injury. I wouldn't say it was tactical, either. It was obvious already before the game that it wasn't smart to play him another 90 [minutes]. There's a lot to be said about the players I constantly play and I have to keep them fit.
I have to manage their load, and it was, yesterday when performance staff came to me and said, If we had an extra day, he wouldn't have trained yesterday to recover a little bit more, so then you're always in a certain risk zone, and I already had to make a substitution in the first half.
So that means if you leave him on and you take him out after 60 minutes, your second substitution is left, so that's why I decided to take him off at half-time because it was always the intention to take him off somewhere during the second half.
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