Lack of energy at the end led to Liverpool defeat, says Slot after Amine Adli’s last-gasp winner condemns them to loss.
After Amine Adli’s goal in the 95th minute doomed Liverpool to their first defeat since November, Arne Slot acknowledged that his team had a lack of energy in the setback at Bournemouth. With a spectacular free kick from Dominik Szoboszlai, Liverpool overcame a 2-0 deficit late on. However, Bournemouth rallied admirably, and Adli scored the game-winning goal with a long throw with nearly the final kick.
The head coach of Liverpool said that he was afraid of a Bournemouth victory, but he believed that referee Michael Salisbury ought to have used more stoppage time in the second half to allow for substitutions and video assistant referee checks.
“I think it is safe to say they could have scored 3-2 a little bit earlier,” Slot said, alluding to chances for the Bournemouth pair Evanilson and Ryan Christie. “A few of our players ran out of energy and I cannot even criticise them for that because two days ago [three] we had to play an away game. We’re the only team that played in the Champions League that has two games in between.
“This time after an away game [a 3-0 win in Marseille], another away game against one of the most intense teams in the league and I mainly played the same players because of the players we have available. Conceding a goal is always frustrating, but especially if there is no time left to come back into the game.”
At full time Slot told the officials he was unhappy that only four minutes of stoppage time were allocated. “For me, four minutes of added time was not enough but in the end that didn’t matter because they scored,” he said. “Although then we could’ve maybe had two or three [more] minutes but this game shouldn’t have had four minutes of extra time. There was a free-kick that took two or three minutes, there were VAR moments, there were substitutions. That’s what I said to them.”