Arne Slot has explained why he believes it was a “mistake” for him to start a top Liverpool midfielder in Saturday’s come-from-behind 3-1 win over Southampton that stretched the Reds’ lead at the top of the Premier League table to a whopping 16 points.
Despite trailing at half-time, Slot’s men turned the game around in the second half, with much-maligned striker Darwin Nunez sparking the victory as he scored early in the second period and then earned a penalty which Mo Salah converted. The Premier League’s leading scorer netted another from the spot late on to seal all three points.
The result, however, came after a tactical reshuffle by Slot at the break as the Dutchman replaced Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Kostas Tsimikas with Harvey Elliott, Alexis Mac Allister and Andy Robertson to freshen his side up – particularly in midfield where Liverpool had struggled.
And, speaking after the game, Slot revealed that upon reflection it was a mistake to start Hungary playmaker Szoboszlai in the first place.
Szoboszlai, who is known for his incredible work rate and endurance, was visibly not at his best during the opening 45 minutes.
That led to Slot telling reporters after the game: “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.”
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Slot still wary of Arsenal threat after Southampton ‘warning’
Despite his side extending their already massive lead over Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal to 16 points, Slot is still wary of that advantage dissipating over the next few weeks.
Speaking about that gap at the top, the former Feyenoord chief told Match of the Day: “It’s 16 for now but that can be down to seven by the time we play Everton in a few weeks [Arsenal have three Premier League games before Liverpool next play in the top-flight].
As for the hard-fought victory over bottom-of-the-table Southampton, he told Sky Sports: “It was a very poor performance in the first half. Maybe if you see the highlights you would feel there were three or four chances, but we were not in the game at all and it didn’t come to a surprise to me that we conceded a goal. Especially if you look at the way we conceded it, it tells you all about our first half.
“We found a way to win the game in the second half.
“In the media, in my meetings, I made clear to them how difficult of a game this was and that we have to play on different intensity levels than we’ve played against Paris Saint-Germain. Maybe also to get used to that level of intensity that we’re going to experience Tuesday again. But in the end I had to make some hard decisions, maybe at half-time, to create a certain anger with the players.
“That triple substitution at the start of the second half seemed to reignite the team. The three that came in did really well. That’s the first thing, but I could see from the other eight a different attitude as well.
“So if you look at the first goal, we played the ball to Diaz and all of a sudden he was on tempo trying to create something, where in the first half he kept the ball waiting, waiting, waiting and that was not only for him, but in general.
“And in the second goal you could see Ryan Gravenberch pushing up, winning the second ball which led to the penalty, where in the first half they could every time escape after we crossed the ball.
“I’m fully aware of the fact that if you play a season, you cannot play 38 times in the highest intensity or the best possible football you can play. So sometimes you have to find another way of winning a game.
“But the first half today is hopefully a warning sign because like I said, we’ve experienced it already in Paris, that the intensity, the way they play, was very high for us on that night. And if I compare it with the intensity we played today, it’s not one, two, three, four, five steps, it’s probably six or seven or eight steps down towards the intensity levels of Paris Saint-Germain.”
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