Arne Slot has acknowledged that Liverpool’s 4-2 defeat Aston Villa could prove “damaging” in their pursuit of UEFA Champions League qualification and said he understands fans’ frustrations after a hugely disappointing campaign.
The Reds suffered their 19th defeat of the season in all competitions at Villa Park, with Unai Emery’s side leapfrogging their visitors into fourth place.
While Champions League qualification is still in Liverpool’s hands, both Bournemouth and Brighton & Hove Albion have the chance to finish above Slot’s side if they fail to beat Brentford at Anfield next weekend.
– Villa clinch UCL spot to leave Liverpool’s in doubt
“It’s damaging because we needed either a win or maybe, maybe, maybe two draws would have been enough as well,” Slot said. “But now we know one thing for sure — we need a win next week if we have to do it ourselves.
“The other teams of course need to pick up points as well for us to need a win. That’s really damaging that we were not able to get a result let alone a win here today.
“There were parts in the game where I felt a result could have gone our way but I think people are mainly focused on the period after the 2-1 where we couldn’t find any momentum anymore and we conceded two other goals. That was the most difficult period in the game.
“It is frustrating because as a manager you are also responsible for if things happen time and time again — you are hired to try to prevent that for the next time.”
Liverpool’s first league loss to Aston Villa since October 2020 was their 12th Premier League defeat of the season. On only three previous occasions has a defending Premier League champion lost more games the season after their title win.
Friday also saw Liverpool concede four goals in a Premier League game for the first time in Slot’s two seasons in charge. It took Liverpool’s total number of goals conceded this season to 51, its most ever in a 38-game Premier League season.
Despite those struggles, Slot said Thursday that he had “every reason to believe” he would remain in charge next season.
“I can understand that at this moment in time [the fans] don’t have a lot of confidence or a lot of feeling that things can be much better next season but I think then they are underestimating what a [transfer] window can do, what a new start can do,” Slot added after Friday’s loss.
“I think we know quite well what to improve. One of the things we have to improve is very, very obvious and I would have preferred not to talk about it here but you’re actually almost forcing me to.
“If you miss nine players that can start a game of football and almost all of them are starters for us — or have been for large parts of the season — then if you add that to what you can improve in a window and add that to players that are playing for the second season in the Premier League — and I think we saw that the adaptation for a few of them took some time — that will automatically lead to much more.
“My opinion — and nobody has to agree with me — is that, even today, for large parts of the game we were close to a result but when you are the better team, you need to generate more chances and score them and we cannot concede as many set pieces as we have conceded this season.
“I don’t think the difference is so big, only doing the right thing in a few situations can have a massive upwards possibility.”
ESPN Research contributed to this report.
