Arne Slot refused to blame the referee after Liverpool’s 2-1 home defeat to Manchester United, instead faulting his players’ performance and defensive errors.
Liverpool boss Arne Slot refused to blame referee Michael Oliver for Manchester United’s opening goal in their 2-1 Premier League defeat at Anfield, despite anger over a head injury incident involving Alexis Mac Allister.
United took the lead just 63 seconds into the game when Bryan Mbeumo scored after Oliver allowed play to continue, even as Mac Allister lay on the pitch following a clash with teammate Virgil van Dijk. The Premier League Match Centre later clarified that because Van Dijk made the contact, it could not be considered a foul and VAR could not intervene.
After the match, Slot downplayed officiating controversies, focusing instead on his team’s fourth straight loss. “If you lose a game of football, especially after you have lost four, maybe you should have the emotion in the game,” Slot said. “But I should not talk about that in that moment of time. No excuses.”
He added, “We’ve had more than enough chances to score a goal when we didn’t need that penalty. We had so many chances, we need to score more… we have to defend better than we did.”
Van Dijk accepted responsibility for the incident, saying, “My elbow hit the player and he goes down and I went down. There was plenty of football left to be played and we didn’t.”
Liverpool’s defeat deepens pressure on Slot, whose side have now suffered four consecutive losses.