In the hot seat: Arne Slot
Arne Slot insists he is “not worried” about his position as Liverpool manager after the Reds suffered another humiliating loss at Anfield.
Beaten 4-1 at home by PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League on Wednesday, just days after Nottingham Forest knocked three past them in the Premier League, Liverpool now sit in the the bottom half of the table domestically and outside the automatic qualification spots for the knock-out stages in Europe.
With his side losing nine of their last 12 games in all competitions, and conceding 10 goals across their recent three successive defeats, Slot admitted that the emotions on Merseyside are “very negative and disappointing”.
“I have to be, I want to be positive about the reaction of the players after we went 1-0 down because until half-time, we played a very good game,” he said of the hosts’ reaction to falling behind as they have done on so many occasions recently - this time thanks to a penalty in the sixth minute.
“After another disappointment, we came back into the game. I think we had enough chances to go 2-1 up, and at half-time [when the scores were 1-1] I don’t think anyone expected us to lose 4-1.”
"After we conceded the first one, we saw the reaction I want to see. The mentality I saw afterwards was as you are hoping it to be, but it's not always easy if you've had so many disappointments.”
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Slot added that it was “hard to take” the fact that Liverpool then conceded “quite early” after half-time, and sloppy defending allowed a third goal that put the game out of reach long before PSV put the icing on the cake in stoppage time.
But the Reds’ boss maintained that “the only way to go is to go through it now”.
“What I mean by that is we just have to face what we are in and fight really hard,” he continued.
“It will be nice if we don't, every time, have this knack of conceding a goal, because it's not only conceding a goal, it's the feeling - at least the feeling I have and I think the players will probably have the same, and our fans as well.”
Asked whether Liverpool’s ongoing run of poor results could put his job in jeopardy, Slot replied: “No, I am not worried. My focus is on other things than worrying about my own position. I need to do better.”