Arne Slot’s stumbling Liverpool side have now lost four games on the spin after Manchester United won at Anfield, having opened the scoring with a controversial goal
Liverpool boss Arne Slot refused to give his players ‘excuses’ despite Michael Oliver’s decision not to stop play for a head injury in the build-up to Manchester United’s opening goal during their dramatic 2-1 win at Anfield.
United took a surprise lead inside 63 seconds, as Bryan Mbeumo slotted home. But Liverpool were furious that Oliver hadn’t blown his whistle, as Alexis Mac Allister was down after suffering a blow to the back of his head in a clash with his own team-mate, Virgil van Dijk. Oliver didn’t appear to see the Liverpool star holding his head on the turf, allowing play to continue.
The Premier League Match Centre explained that because Van Dijk made the contact with Mac Allister, it couldn’t have been given as a foul and VAR were unable to intervene. It was, therefore, down to Oliver’s reading of the game.
Post-match, Slot was asked for his verdict on both the goal and a penalty shout for handball in the first half that was waved away by the referee. But the Reds boss preferred to focus on his players’ poor performance, as Liverpool suffered their fourth consecutive defeat.
“If you lose a game of football, especially after you have lost four, maybe you should have the emotion in the game,” Slot replied. “But I should not talk about that in that moment of time. No excuses.
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“We’ve had more than enough chances to score a goal when we didn’t need that penalty. Yes or no. I don’t want to talk about that. We had so many chances, we need to score more. And if you are 1-1 and the game is completely there for you and you have to defend one set piece, then we have to defend it better than we did.
“This is something we have to work on. And there’s emotion in the game about decisions. Every manager has this. But I will not talk about this.”
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Van Dijk said of the incident: “I think the ball went long, first header was a United player, second by me. My elbow hit the player and he goes down and I went down. That angle it was difficult to score and he did. There was plenty of football left to be played [and score] and we didn’t.
“We need to stay humble and stay working and keep our confidence as high as possible. When things get tough, it is important we keep the mentality of being there for each other. It is a long season.”
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