Arne Slot expressed his disappointment over Liverpool’s lack of cutting edge as they fell to a 2-1 defeat against Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley. The Reds’ boss acknowledged the frustration that the international break will bring, preventing his team from swiftly addressing the challenges of a tough week, which also saw their Champions League exit.
Slot opted for Diogo Jota to lead the line once again with Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah flanking him, yet Jota found little success against Newcastle’s solid defence. Following Jota, came Darwin Nunez whose efforts proved to be just as fruitless as he faced the Magpies’ robust backline.
Despite Federico Chiesa coming off the bench to score in stoppage time, after Dan Burn and Alexander Isak netted for Newcastle, it was ultimately a fair loss for the club that has won the competition 10 times before, as Newcastle claimed their first major trophy in 70 years.
Slot commented on the tactical adjustments made during the match: “You try to make some changes and you go to a No.9 who is stronger in the air than Diogo is. You hope Darwin can make it a bit more difficult for defenders to win all the long balls that in the first half I think Dan Burn won every duel.
“You try to influence it like this and you show them at half-time that in the few moments that are left when the ball is on the ground that we have a bit more time than we think and we could make better decisions and I saw that immediately after half-time. We played through them a bit more in the second half, not a lot but a bit.”
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Talking about a challenging period that also involved a penalty shootout defeat to PSG in the Champions League, Slot commented: “It’s not the first time in our history we’ve lost two games in a row, that’s part of playing football. Even Liverpool can lose football games, that’s what can happen.
“I would have loved to play next week but the situation now is they go with their national teams where they have to play two more games again.
“Then it’s one-and-a-half weeks before we play Everton, a team we already faced, we know how difficult that one was. Let’s see.”
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can read the original story in the Liverpool ECHO by clicking here.
