Arne Slot reflects on how Newcastle United took Liverpool apart – This is excellent | OneFootball

Arne Slot watched on as Liverpool lost the Carabao Cup Final to Newcastle United.

The scoreboard read Liverpool 1 Newcastle 2 at the final whistle but this only tells one small part of the story.

This was a match where Arne Slot saw his Liverpool side dominated by Newcastle United throughout, where United deserved to win by three or four.

Credit to Arne Slot though, some excellent comments below reflecting on what he watched, giving full credit to Eddie Howe and Newcastle United, I can think of at least one former Liverpool boss who wouldn’t have been so gracious and honest in defeat…

Arne Slot has been reflecting on Liverpool losing the Carabao Cup Final to Newcastle United, post-match comments via official Liverpool media:

‘Disappointing result, disappointing performance. So, completely different than I felt after the Paris Saint-Germain game. Losing twice in a row is something I think we do for the first time. But that probably also comes with going into the latter stages of a tournament, so facing Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle in a final are two very good teams, both in their own styles. But very difficult teams to face, because we already knew from the game at St. James’ Park how difficult it is to beat them. It was a tough week but it was also a week where we extended our lead [in the Premier League] to 12 points from it being 10, so it wasn’t all negative. But the last two were definitely not the way we wanted it to be.’

On whether Liverpool were physically or mentally fatigued on the day, or a combination of both, after Tuesday’s game against Paris Saint-Germain…

‘Mentally, it’s always difficult to judge. Were we on Tuesday mentally or physically tired? No. But this game had nothing to do with running, this game had only to do with playing duels and there was no intensity in terms of running in this game at all. So you cannot even judge it if we were tired yes or no, physically, because we could not press them. You can judge a team if they are tired and they press. But there was nothing to press because they played over our press. If they got a goal-kick or if they got a free-kick – which they had quite a lot of in the first half – they every time brought it into our last line, which led to a lot of set-pieces.

So, the game was slow and not intense, so it’s difficult to judge for me if we were physically ready. Mentally, that’s always a difficult one. If you look at the result and the performance you might feel it maybe did something to us, but I prefer to look at how the game went. And this game went exactly the way they wanted it to be: a fight with a lot of duels and a lot of duels through the air. And if we play 10 times a game of football through the air against them, they win it probably nine times because they are a stronger team through the air than us, which led to the first goal and the second goal because the second goal was also a header that they won at the second post that fell for Isak and led to the 2-0.’

Arne Slot on Alexis Mac Allister marking Burn from a corner for the opening goal:

‘Again, credit to Newcastle. But I can explain. We play zonal so we have five players zonally close to our goal, so if the ball falls there it is always one of the five stronger players that are going to attack that ball. And we have three players that man-mark and Macca is one of them. Normally a player like Dan Burn or another one runs to the zone because normally… I think he’s an exception to that because I have never seen in my life a player from that far away heading a ball with so much force into the far corner. That is part of logic, that they either have to go far away from our zone, which 99 out of 100 times that will never lead to a goal, or they have to arrive in our zone and then it’s an equal battle, if you want to call it like this. So credit to him, I think he’s one of the few players that can score a goal from that distance with his head.’

Arne Slot on if he felt Newcastle were hungrier on the day after 70 years without a domestic trophy:

‘No, because it’s 70 years since they last won a trophy maybe, but that’s for the fans. Players have 15 years to play football and they want to win every single trophy they are competing for. That’s also what we want. But it was a game that went the way they wanted it to go. And they got just before half-time some extra energy with the goal, which they probably deserved after the first 45 minutes because they were threatening us more than we were threatening them. I don’t think there was more hunger for them; the game went the way they wanted it to go and they are stronger in that part of football than us and that’s why they beat us.’

Arne Slot on how he tries to affect the momentum of a game when it is unfolding in that way:

‘You try to make some changes, you go to a No.9 that is even stronger through the air than Diogo [Jota] maybe is, because you are hoping that he – Darwin [Nunez] in this situation – can make it a bit more difficult for their defenders to win all these long balls we had to play in this first half. Because I think Dan Burn won every duel and he played somewhere around 150… I don’t know but he played a lot. You try to influence it like this and you’re showing at half-time that in the few moments that are left when the ball is on the ground, that we have a bit more time than we think and we could make better decisions than we made in the first half. That’s also what I saw immediately after half-time when we played Virgil [van Dijk] free with a triangle and he dribbled all the way in, played the ball to Diogo and that led not to a chance, because Joelinton threw himself in front of the ball, but I saw in the second half us playing through them a bit more – but a bit, not a lot but a bit more.’

Arne Slot on a ‘damaging’ week going out of the Champions League and losing a final:

‘Like I said from the start, it took us seven, eight [or] nine months to lose twice in a row and that happens against two teams; one of them is fighting for Champions League, Newcastle is a very good team [and] we knew this already at St. James’ Park, and the other one is Paris Saint-Germain. Probably if you can beat us in that style of play you are probably the best in Europe at the moment. They still have to show if they still can do this in the upcoming two or three months. But I want to make clear one more time that the week started off really well by us beating Southampton. That’s why we extended our lead to 12 points [in the Premier League] with nine games to go. You know if you go far in tournaments that the opposition you face gets stronger and stronger. Even Liverpool can lose football games, that’s what can happen.’

Arne Slot on whether the manner of the defeat worried him:

‘We were outplayed in their style, yeah, that’s true. That is what you can call outplayed. Yeah, they won more duels than us. Is that what you mean? Is that outworking? Or is that one of their biggest qualities to play so much [with] aerial duels and to win these physique duels? Outplayed for me is if you don’t touch the ball and they play through you every single time we tried to press them, every time you’re too late. 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. 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 [and] second balls and that’s their strength.’

Arne Slot on if the international break has come at a good time for his squad:

‘We are 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. 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. I would’ve loved to play next week. But now the situation is they go to their national teams, where they have two more games again. Then it’s probably one-and-a-half weeks before we face Everton, which is again a team we already faced. We know how difficult that one was. Let’s see.’

Arne Slot on whether the problems to solve for him are physical or mental in his squad:

‘I don’t think physically, because of what I just said. If you looked at how we played on Tuesday, it was the best physical performance in my eight or nine or 10 months at Liverpool. I’ve never seen a team working so hard trying to press the other team so aggressive; running so much. Today it wasn’t about running. It was more about duels. Mentally it’s always tough to lose a final. It’s always tough if you wear the Liverpool shirt if you go out of Europe. But again, last season, I’m not sure [if it] was the quarter-final or last 16 when they lost against Atalanta 3-0. It’s part of football if you face strong teams that you can lose as well. Ideally you go through the whole season only winning, winning, winning. But it can happen that after eight months of football you lose twice in a row if you face Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle.’

Liverpool 1 Newcastle 2 – Sunday 16 March 4.30pm

Goals:

Burn 45, Isak 52

Liverpool:

Chiesa 90+4

Possession was Newcastle 34% Liverpool 66%

Total shots were Newcastle 17 Liverpool 7

Shots on target were Newcastle 6 Liverpool 2

Corners were Newcastle 9 Liverpool 4

Touches in the box Newcastle 26 Liverpool 17

Newcastle team v Liverpool:

Pope, Trippier, Schar, Burn, Livramento, Joelinton, Tonali, Bruno, Barnes (Willock 81), Isak (Wilson 81), Murphy (Krafth 90)

Unused subs:

Dubravka, Longstaff, Targett, Osula, Miley, Neave