Mohamed Salah revealed that Arne Slot was unsurprisingly not happy as he addressed Liverpool’s players at halftime of Saturday’s win over Southampton.
Slot was not in the home team’s dug-out at Anfield as he served a touchline ban but was allowed to speak to his players at halftime, and made it clear that he was not satisfied with what he was seeing from the stands. Liverpool produced a flat first-half performance and fell behind when Will Smallbone slotted the ball in at Alisson’s near post just before the break.
Salah was asked in a post-match interview with Premier League Producitons what Slot had said at halftime and responded: “It was a bit of frustration. His head was going for us. We were sloppy and slow in the first half. I don’t think we played good today. If you want to win the Champions League or Premier League you have to win these games like that.”
Slot’s dissatisfaction was evidenced by his decision to make a triple substitution at the pause, replacing Kostas Tsimikas, Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai with Andy Robertson, Harvey Elliott and Alexis Mac Allister. The changes had the desired effect as Liverpool turned the game on its head within 10 second-half minutes, as Darwin Nunez netted an equalizer before Salah scored a penalty.
Salah netted another penalty in the closing stages of the match to secure a 3-1 victory which extends Liverpool’s lead at the top of the table to 16 points. Second-placed Arsenal has two games in hand on the Reds and plays one of them on Sunday, against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
As for Liverpool, it has two more games before the international break later this month: against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Tuesday, and next Sunday’s Carabao Cup final.
