Arne Slot conceded his side ran out of steam in defeat at Bournemouth, after Amine Adli’s 95th-minute winner condemned Liverpool to a first loss since November. Liverpool pulled level from 2-0 down late on courtesy of Dominik Szoboszlai’s sensational free-kick, but Bournemouth responded impressively and Adli struck a winner from a long throw with almost the last kick.
The Liverpool head coach felt the referee, Michael Salisbury, should have played more second-half stoppage time taking in substitutions and video assistant referee checks but admitted he feared a Bournemouth winner. “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.”
Slot refused to criticise his captain, Virgil van Dijk, for his defensive error in the buildup to Evanilson’s opener and would not be drawn when asked whether Andy Robertson would remain at the club. Tottenham are pursuing a deal to sign the Scotland captain, who replaced Milos Kerkez at half-time. The left-back, a £40m buy from Bournemouth last summer, was at fault for the hosts’ second goal, scored while Liverpool had only 10 men on the pitch after Joe Gomez was forced off injured.
Bournemouth’s head coach, Andoni Iraola, expressed his delight that his side were rewarded for shifting their mentality and gameplan. “Normally we go full gas from the beginning, we keep our energy until the end,” he said. “But now, probably because we don’t have the numbers and need to adapt a little bit, we are choosing our moments a little bit more and knowing we might need to save a little bit of energy.”
