Arne Slot says Liverpool ‘fought’ for 100 minutes against Plymouth, but fell short of the required standard as they lost to Plymouth in the FA Cup.
Liverpool were beaten 1-0 by Plymouth in the fourth round of the FA Cup, with Ryan Hardie’s 53rd-minute penalty proving decisive.
Slot made a number of changes, introducing young players such as Trey Nyoni and James McConnell, but he also fielded Federico Chiesa, Diogo Jota, and Luis Diaz up front, although the Reds were blunted by their industrious hosts.
The dutch manager did not fault the effort of his players, but he did warn them that they fell short of his expectations, leading to a degree of “hurt” at Anfield. The club are, of course, top of the Premier League, and are still competing in both the Champions League and the Carabao Cup.
He told ITV: “It’s a great day for Plymouth. They had a good gameplan and they deserve all the credit for their performance today. 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.”
He added: “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 will return to action on Wednesday in the Premier League. They play Everton in a huge Merseyside derby
