Liverpool information: Arne Slot says who’s accountable, VAR farce and Jurgen Klopp’s non-public texts
Liverpool are eighth in the Premier League as the reigning champions’ season under Arne Slot goes from bad to worse after a controversial defeat against Manchester City
Following consecutive victories over Aston Villa and Real Madrid, Liverpool‘s brief resurgence was abruptly halted on Sunday by Manchester City.
The reigning champions suffered their fifth loss in 11 Premier League matches as goals from Erling Haaland, Nico Gonzalez, and Jeremy Doku handed City a decisive victory. Liverpool’s manager, Arne Slot, is now under renewed scrutiny after Sunday’s drubbing. The result leaves the Reds languishing in eighth place in the Premier League, with Slot putting any title challenge talk on hold for the time being.
Adding insult to injury, Liverpool had to grapple with a highly contentious VAR decision during their clash with City. Virgil van Dijk’s equaliser, which would have levelled the game at 1-1 before half-time, was controversially disallowed following a review that left the Reds seething, with pundits and fans including neutrals baffled by the officiating.
Here’s all the latest news from Anfield.
Arne Slot takes the blame
Slot himself has taken responsibility for Liverpool’s crushing defeat to Manchester City, reports the Mirror.
As the Reds’ struggles persist this season, with blame being apportioned to both players and manager, Slot has suggested his tactics are at fault, rather than his team.
Slot fielded an unchanged line-up from the one that triumphed over Real Madrid 1-0 at Anfield in the Champions League on Tuesday. However, the same squad found it challenging to compete with City across all areas on the Etihad pitch.
“It’s easy for players to win their duels if the game plan and tactics are working,” Slot stated. “What I did against Villa and Madrid, we struggled now a lot with them bringing so many players into the centre of the pitch.
“It was difficult for some of our players then to make the right decisions. It wasn’t about my players not wanting to make duels, they had to run a lot because they were so much better on the ball than us. Our players were then sometimes too late.
“I would look to the game-plan first and foremost of us and them and not blame my players at all. In the second half when we were doing better you could see could us winning much more duels. Then we were more than a few times able to win the ball, which didn’t result in a goal for us.
“But in the second half we definitely deserved a goal. Of course, everyone is disappointed. It was a very good start to the week, winning against Villa and Real Madrid, but if you’ve already faced two strong opponents, and then you have Man City coming at the Etihad, that is always difficult for every team, including us.”
Liverpool’s VAR verdict revealed
Liverpool believed they had clawed their way back into the match with City after Virgil van Dijk levelled the score with a clever header from a corner. However, following a VAR review, the goal was disallowed for offside, with Andy Robertson deemed to be interfering with play.
Former referee and head of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), Keith Hackett, has shed light on why he thinks the incorrect decision was made.
“Well, we saw Liverpool have a perfectly good goal ruled out on the basis of offside,” he shared with Football Insider. We know there is a degree of subjectivity in this specific law, but let’s have a look at it.
“He added: “A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team mate.”
He continued: “Interfering with an opponent by preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play by clearly obstructing the opponents line of vision or challenging an opponent for the ball.
“Yes he’s [Robertson] in an offside position but that in itself not an offence. Did he really interfere with the goalkeeper?
I think the goalkeeper had a clear line of sight, he could’ve saved it, he didn’t, the ball went in and the officials took the easy decision to give offside and rule out the goal.
Wrong in my opinion. Yes I agree a degree of subjectivity around this law, but my opinion is I don’t like good goals being ruled out.”
Klopp’s contact
While Slot is facing the first major crisis of his Liverpool tenure, he can find comfort in the fact that he received backing from his legendary predecessor Jurgen Klopp, long before the Dutchman’s current struggles at Anfield.
Klopp disclosed he had been in touch with the former Feyenoord manager prior to his Merseyside appointment. “Arne, yeah. Really good coach,” he shared with ESPN last year after Slot’s confirmation.
“I was really happy when I heard that Liverpool was going for Arne Slot. I wasn’t involved in anything, it should not be like that, and I’m not this kind of guy in the background, still having some strings and stuff. Like I don’t want that. The club is too big, too good. [The] People are too good.
“A lot of things changed since we left. But the only concern for me was, will they get a good coach? Liverpool was early and Liverpool got a top, top, top solution in Arne Slot.”
Yet Klopp kept the details of their exchanges private. He continued: “We spoke one or two times [at the start]. I think we texted a few more times. But there is nothing I can tell him what he couldn’t know himself. Right now from my side, just to give positive feedback in the beginning because we are all human beings and he worked his socks off.
“I know that because the tour is super intense in a year when you have Euros and Copa, you don’t have the team together, but they come, you have one week until the first matchday and stuff like that. So I think he had similar situation, but exactly the same situation? Definitely not.
“When I saw the games, that’s why I watched it, not to think, oh, how does it look? The work he did was obvious, the ideas obvious. And that’s the best you can say about the coach.”
