Arne Slot’s trophy potential from his first season at Liverpool is down to one after the Reds fell 2-1 to Newcastle United in the League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.
Slot’s side were coming off 120 minutes and penalties at midweek, a UEFA Champions League exit at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain that surely sapped legs as well as spirit.
MORE — Newcastle blank Liverpool, win 1st League Cup
But they could not solve Nick Pope until Federico Chiesa’s stoppage-time goal and were controlled by Newcastle in the first half, conceding goals in the final to Dan Burn and Alexander Isak by the time all was said and done.
Now Slot’s only trophy hope is their probable Premier League title triumph, as the Reds were eliminated from the FA Cup by second-division Plymouth Argyle.
Arne Slot reacts to Liverpool’s loss to Newcastle in League Cup Final at Wembley
“Disappointing result, disappointing performance — Completely different than I felt after the Paris Saint-Germain game. Losing twice in a row is something we do for the first time but that also comes with going into the latter stages of tournaments, facing Newcastle and PSG in the finals are two very good teams in their own styles. We already knew how difficult it is to be Newcastle. It was a tough week but it was also a week where we extended our week to 12 points from 10. It wasn’t all negative but the last two were definitely not the way we wanted to be.”
Was the club mentally weary from UCL exit?“Mentally it’s always difficult to judge. On Tuesday were we mentally or physically tired? No but this game had nothing to do with running. This game had only duels and there was no intensity in terms of running so you can’t even judge if we were tired. We could not press them, but there was nothing to press because they played overall press. The game was slow and not intense. It’s difficult to judge if we were physically ready. Mentally is always a difficult one. If you look at the result and the performance you might feel it did something to us. This game went exactly the way they wanted it to be — a fight and a lot of duels through the air. If we play 10 times a game of football through the air against them, they probably win it nine times.”
On Mac Allister marking Burn on the first Newcastle goal: “Credit to Newcastle. We play zonal so we have a lot of five players close to our goal so if the ball falls there there’s always one of the five stronger players to attack that ball. We have three players who man mark and Mac Allister is one of them. Normally a player like Burn runs through the zone, he’s an exception of a player from that far away heading a ball with so much force heading the ball into the far corner. That’s part of the logic — They either have to go far from away from our zone or they have to arrive in our zone and then it’s an equal battle. So credit to him, I think he’s one of the few players who can score from that distance with his head.”
Were Newcastle hungrier than Liverpool? “It’s 70 years since they’ve last won a trophy but that’s for the fans and the players have maybe 15 years to play football maybe and they want to win every single trophy they are competing for. And that’s also what we want. But it was a game that went the way they wanted it to go and they got some extra energy before halftime with the goal. I don’t think there was more hunger for them. They are stronger in that part of football than us, and they beat us.”
Worried about the team’s spirit down the stretch? “It took us 7, 8, 9 months to lose twice in a row and that happens against two teams that one of them is fighting for Champions League, Newcastle, and they are a very good team. We knew this already at St. James’ Park. And the other one is Paris Saint-Germain. If you can beat us with that style of play, then you are probably the best team in Europe at the moment. But the week started out really well with beating Southampton. Even Liverpool can lose football games. That’s what can happen.”
Outplayed by Newcastle? "[If you’re saying] We were out-played in their style, that’s true but that is what you can call out-played, they won more duels than us. Is that outworking or is it just one of their biggest qualities. Out-played for me is if they play through you and every time you’re too late. They deserved to win but it wasn’t like we were only running after them.”
