Arne Slot was defiant after his Liverpool side ended a miserable week with defeat to Newcastle in the League Cup final on Sunday, switching the focus to the team’s Premier League charge.
The painful 2-1 loss at Wembley comes four days after the Reds exited the Champions League on penalties against Paris Saint-Germain, giving a sense of anti-climax even though they are almost certain to be crowned league champions.
Newcastle, picking up their first major trophy for 56 years and their first domestic silverware for 70 years, outmuscled Liverpool in London, winning courtesy of goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak.
Federico Chiesa pulled one back in added time but it was too little, too late for the team defending the trophy they won last year against Chelsea.
Slot was asked after the match how he would ensure the defeat would not have a knock-on effect for the rest of the season.
Liverpool, hot favourites to match Manchester United’s record of 20 English top-flight titles, are 12 points clear of second-placed Arsenal at the top of the Premier League with just nine matches to go.
“We are here in one of the biggest clubs in the world, Liverpool, but it’s not for the first time in their history or in the last two seasons that they’ve lost two games in a row,” said Slot.
“This is part of playing football, especially if one of them is when you face the best team in Europe at the moment and the other one is facing Newcastle, which is a very strong team in England.”
– ‘Tough week’ –
Slot admitted it had been a “tough week” but pointed out that his side had extended their lead in the Premier League.
“I want to make clear one more time that the week started off really well by us beating Southampton,” he said. “That’s why we extended our lead to 12 points with nine games to go (the situation after Arsenal’s 1-0 against Chelsea on Sunday).
“And, yeah, you know if you go far in tournaments that the opposition in your face gets stronger and stronger and that you can lose. Even Liverpool can lose football games. That’s what can happen.”
Slot denied his men had been outplayed by Eddie Howe’s Newcastle despite their sub-par performance.
“Outplayed for me is if you don’t touch the ball and they play through you every single time you try to press them and every time you’re too late,” he said. “That is for me outplayed.
“But I agree with you if you say that they deserved to win because the game went in the way they wanted it to go. So, yes, they deserved to win but it wasn’t like we were only running after them.
“We had to defend a lot of long balls, second balls and that’s their strength.”
The Dutchman said he would rather have played again next week than go into an international break — Liverpool are next in action against Everton in the Premier League on April 2.
“I would have loved to play next week but now the situation is that they go to their national teams where they have to play two more games again,” he said.
“Then it’s probably one and a half weeks before we face Everton, which is again a team we already faced and we know how difficult that one was. So let’s see. I think you have to adjust.”
jw/nf
