Arne Slot offers his reaction to Liverpool's 3-0 loss at Manchester City and what it does to their chances of retaining the Premier League title
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 9: Liverpool Manager Arne Slot during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Liverpool at Etihad Stadium on November 9, 2025 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Shaun Brooks - CameraSport via Getty Images)
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot during his side's defeat at Manchester City(Image: Shaun Brooks - CameraSport via Getty Images)
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Arne Slot fears Liverpool have already lost too many games to be regarded title contenders after a chastening defeat at Manchester City. The champions slumped to a miserable 3-0 loss at the Etihad on Sunday afternoon to drop to eighth in the Premier League table, eight points behind runaway leaders Arsenal.
Erling Haaland’s header and a deflected Nico Gonzalez strike put City in control by the break before Jeremy Doku curled in a third in the second half.
It was a fifth defeat in 11 top-flight games this season for Liverpool, already more than they suffered during the whole of the previous campaign.
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And asked how that number of setbacks could affect their title defence, Slot said: “It feels there’s too many, and the last thing I should think about now is the title race.
“We should first focus on getting results, result and result after result before we can even think about that.
“The reality is we are eighth now, one team is quite far ahead although City is four points away from Arsenal. The rest is quite close.
“I said last season many times even when we were leading, the best way to judge the league table is after 38 games, and the next best way to is to judge it after 19 games because you have all faced the same opponents.
“Our first focus should be on getting results. The last thing we should focus on is the title race. That was something we could do last season but also not the previous two seasons. We need to improve and that’s obvious.”
Despite a poor first-half performance, Liverpool could have been level eight minutes before the break when Virgil van Dijk’s towering header from a Mohamed Salah cross was disallowed after referee Chris Kavanagh adjudged Andy Robertson to have been in an offside position having viewed his pitchside monitor.
A number of similar incidents in recent seasons have resulted in the goal being allowed, and Slot questioned the decision.
“I would like to emphasise the fact being 2-0 down at half-time was a fair reflection of how the game went,” said the Reds coach.
“But I’ve been on opposite side when my team was much better than the other team and 1-0 up and maybe not scored the second one and the other team gets a set-piece and it’s 1-1 and all of a sudden things change.
“This can happen in football. For me it was a wrong decision that this goal was not allowed, but I will not say because of that we lost the game. After 1-1, if City kept on playing like they did then we would have struggled as well.
“But I constantly felt if we could keep it to 1-0 down to half-time we could maybe adjust a few things which was definitely necessary as we were constantly coming up two players short in the middle because Doku and (Nico) O’Reilly gave us a lot of problems.
“1-1 would have been the biggest gift we could have at half-time. In my opinion the second half was a different game but 2-0 down and 3-0 down it isn’t a good reflection of how things could have went at 1-1.”