Arne Slot gave an honest assessment of Liverpool’s shock defeat at Plymouth in the FA Cup on Sunday.
MORE — Plymouth 1-0 Liverpool: Reaction, highlights, analysis
The Dutch coach saw his side lose 1-0 away at the team who currently sit bottom of the Championship, as that ended Liverpool’s hopes of winning an unprecedented quadruple this season.
Slot made several changes to his usual starting lineup and left several stars at home for the trip to Devon. It didn’t pay off and Liverpool suffered a shock, and deserved, defeat.
Arne Slot reaction
“Great game from Plymouth. Good game plan. They deserve all the credit for their performance today. We were not having a very good day. A result like this is the outcome,” a magnanimous Slot told ITV Sport in the UK.
He was asked if the much-changed squad weren’t up for the fight against scrappy Plymouth, but didn’t agree with that assessment.
“I don’t think I can say the boys didn’t fight because it was a fight for 100 minutes. I think both teams hardly created a chance and the game is decided by a penalty that was awarded correctly because he had his arms above his head. In a game like this where two teams aren’t able to find any openings, it’s up to one moment and that moment is for them. They deserved it because they played a really good game.”
Slot was asked in his post-game press conference if he regretted making so many changes to his team?
“No, because you never know what will happen if we would have played with our starters over here,” Slot said. “I think we’ve seen during this season, we’ve seen a few times already, that it’s a game plan, a playing style, which is difficult for our starters, but also for the ones that played today. So, constantly long balls, second balls, long balls, second balls. It’s difficult for every team. We had it with [Manchester] United at home for example as well. They had a similar playing style going to a very low block [then] kick every ball long, and then we played with our starters. I think today also showed why we played with the ones we played with today because these players need game rhythm as well. For them to be ready in the upcoming months, they need game time, and you saw today that some of these players really need games like this to be ready for the last three months of the season.”
Asked if his creative players, the likes of Diaz, Jota and then Nunez when he came on up top, and all of the team could have created more, Slot widely agreed.
“I think they are able to do it better,” Slot said. “Again, it’s a system, a way of playing, a playing style that is quite hard to create chances against. That is what we saw today and I wasn’t completely surprised because in the lead up to this game you know a lot of long balls, second balls, and when we had the ball they were really aggressive, as expected. It is not always easy then to create a chance, especially if a team has not played with each other so many times. But we expected them, of course, to play a better game than this. But again we have to give credit to Plymouth.”
Slot shared how hurt he and his Liverpool players are to crash out of the FA Cup.
“It hurts everyone. All the Liverpool fans. Me. Players. We were all wanting to be in this competition for as long as possible and if you go out in the first possible game that is a setback,” Slot said.
What kind of reaction does he want to see?
“Actually what I’ve seen today as well, and I’ve seen this whole season, is that they kept on fighting until the last second,” Slot said. “Maybe the only chances we created were in the last 10-15 minutes. It wasn’t a work rate problem. They worked really hard but they couldn’t find openings, chances and we just have to keep doing the work rate the same and have to be a bit more creative in the upcoming games.”
0.44 - Liverpool accumulated an open play xG of just 0.44 today against Plymouth Argyle, their lowest in a game under Arne Slot so far. Lacking. pic.twitter.com/tiuXA74KH6
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 9, 2025
