'We expected to play a better game' - Arne Slot reacts to Liverpool's FA Cup exit | OneFootball

Liverpool manager Arne Slot admitted that defeat in the FA Cup fourth round "hurts" and that he expected his rotated team to put a better showing in against Plymouth Argyle.

The Reds were dumped out of the competition by Ryan Hardie's second-half penalty having made the decision to rest a number of first-team players in order to manage workloads.

Slot decided against including Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Andrew Robertson, Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah in his matchday squad, but there was still plenty of international experienced offered by the likes of Luis Diaz, Federico Chiesa, Diogo Jota and Waturu Endo.

Ultimately, Liverpool could not break down their stoic Championship opponents, and had just four shots on target throughout the entire game.

"It's a great day for Plymouth. They had a good gameplan and they deserve all the credit for their performance today," Slot admitted to ITV after the game.

"We were not having a very good day, and a result like this is the outcome. I don't think I can say the boys didn't fight, because it was a fight for 100 minutes. Both teams didn't really create many chances and the game was decided by a penalty that was awarded correctly. But in a game like this where the teams aren't able to find many openings it is up to one moment and that moment was for them, and like I said they deserved it because they played a really good game.

"I think (the players here today) are able to do better, but this is a playing style that is quite hard to create your chances against, which is what we saw today. But we expected to play a better game than this, but we give credit to Plymouth as well.

"It hurts everyone that's involved with Liverpool, fans, me, players, we were all wanting to be in this competition but if you go out in one of the first possible games that's a setback. Today we kept on fighting until the last second. Maybe the only chances we created were in the last 10-15 minutes, so it wasn't a work rate problem, but we couldn't find openings and chances."

Liverpool are still competing fiercely on three fronts, topping the Premier League table having also finished first in the league phase of the revamped Champions League. A stunning 4-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur in midweek also booked a return to the Carabao Cup final, which they are looking to retain after beating Chelsea in last year's final. Newcastle United will be their opponents at Wembley.