Arne Slot said he had no regrets over fielding a weakened team against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup and accepted he is under pressure as Liverpool succumbed to a sixth defeat in seven games.
Palace beat Liverpool for the third time this season to advance into the quarter-finals thanks to two goals from Ismaïla Sarr and a first Palace goal from Yéremy Pino. A comfortable 3-0 victory was aided by Slot’s decision to make 10 changes from the Liverpool team that started at Brentford on Saturday, with nine inexperienced youngsters on the bench.
But Slot, who admitted selecting with an eye on Saturday’s Premier League game against Aston Villa, stood by his call. “It’s always a blow to lose a game, especially when it leads to going out of a competition, but it’s the same selection I did last season in these rounds,” said the head coach, who hopes to have Ryan Gravenberch back from injury on Saturday.
“There are many reasons why we’ve lost six out of seven, none of them are good enough to accept losing so many. Liverpool losing that many is always too much. Our performance against Brentford, two days after we played Frankfurt away, I saw a team that struggled with playing three games in seven days.
“In two days, we play Villa and the last time I played a player I thought was ready for that programme was Alexander Isak, but it turns out he wasn’t and went out with an injury.
“In the last round we played Southampton and Giovanni Leoni was injured and we got two yellow cards for Hugo Ekitiké. At this time we have only 15 or 16 [senior] players available and this club always used this competition for their academy players. This felt the right decision and I haven’t changed my opinion after the result. With our starters we haven’t been able to beat Palace as well.”
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Slot acknowledged he was under pressure to arrest Liverpool’s slump before the Carabao Cup exit. “I don’t think it’s possible that if you lose five out of six, that losing six out of seven there is even more pressure,” he said. “If you play for Liverpool or manage Liverpool you know the pressure is there. I don’t think it has changed much after this loss.”
