Liverpool manager Arne Slot admits he made a mistake picking Dominik Szoboszlai for the starting line-up in the win over Southampton on Saturday. The Reds, sat at the top of the Premier League, extended their lead over Arsenal to a magnificent 16 points despite being 1-0 down at half-time. A swift second-half goal from Darwin Nunez and two penalties from Mohamed Salah secured the hosts all three points.
It was Slot's half-time shake-up that sparked the reversal, with Harvey Elliott, Alexis Mac Allister, and Andy Robertson called into action to replace Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones, and Kostas Tsimikas. The boss expressed dissatisfaction with his team's first-half performance post-match and acknowledged the change was vital to flipping the game’s direction. He admitted regret over his decision to field the Hungarian midfielder from the off.
He said: "Today, if I could do it one more time over, I would have started it differently than I started today - but you don't know this in advance. Every time I am sitting here and talking about Dominik, I'm talking about he is a machine. He can keep on going, running and running and running.
"It was maybe the first time this season I saw a different energy from him. Which is maybe normal. Maybe I made a mistake by playing him because he gives so much every single game.
"The good news is he only played 45 and is more rested for the upcoming week now than he is if I played him for 90. And the good thing for me is I have more than only one good midfielder in terms of Dominik."
Offering an insight into his half-time team talk, Slot added: "I didn't give them compliments at half-time, I can tell you. Maybe it was because I was sitting up there instead of being at the line.
"When you watch a game from there you always feel that, ah, maybe even I can play in this game. But when you are on the line, there is always more tempo.
"I don't think I was wrong if I said at half-time that the energy levels were far, far, far too low. That is what had to change and that is why we made three substitutions.
"Apart from bringing in quality, also to create something. Because nine out of 10 times, when you take three out, the other eight are like, woah, something else should happen.
"That was the only thing I could come up with at half-time to create something different for the second half."
This story originally appeared on the Mirror