LIVERPOOL, England (AP):
LIVERPOOL’S PLAYERS held “honest” conversations after feeling embarrassed following back-to-back 3-0 losses that have left manager Arne Slot in his most difficult period since joining the club, forward Cody Gakpo said yesterday.
Liverpool have slumped from the high of being crowned Premier League champion in Slot’s first season in charge to the low of losing eight of their last 11 games despite spending US$570 million in a remarkable summer outlay that included signing Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak for club-record fees.
The Reds head into a Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven today on the back of a 3-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest in the league on Saturday, which followed a defeat by the same score at Manchester City before the international break.
“After the game, it was kind of an embarrassment,” Gakpo said of the result against Forest, “because we lost 3-0 at home in front of [our] own fans, which is not good. We know they are here to help us in every tough situation, but we have to give them something back as well.
“It was not a good feeling, but the days after that we were just … I don’t want to say angry, but we try to speak together and really to be honest to each other (about) what we have to do better to perform better on the pitch. We also know we have to stick together, and that’s what we will try to do.”
At Anfield, Gakpo will be facing the team where he played from 2018-23 and which leads the Dutch league by six points in its bid for a third straight top-flight title.
It promises to be another test for Liverpool’s creaking defence, which has conceded 20 goals in 12 games in the Premier League. Only four teams have let in more.
“The amount of goals we have conceded and the amount of goals we have conceded from set pieces (nine) is close to ridiculous for a club like us,” Slot said.
With right backs Jeremie Frimpong and Conor Bradley currently sidelined and back-up central defender Giovanni Leoni out for a year with ACL damage, Slot said he is down to five senior defenders in his squad in the middle of a congested run of end-of-year fixtures.
One of them isn’t even fully fit, with Joe Gomez — who can fill in at right back or centre back — battling a knee problem.
It means Slot is having to play Ibrahima Konate every game despite criticism from fans and pundits towards the France centre back for his recent display and deploy key midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai as an emergency right back at times.
Asked whether Gomez would be available against PSV, Slot said: “Normally, I wouldn’t go into detail maybe that much, but he had an injection last week on his knee. So that means that’s normally not because you don’t feel anything.
“Apart from, maybe, me making the decision to play Dom or someone else in that position, this is also to do with him not being completely fit although he is in the group tomorrow, as he was on Saturday, but (he) wasn’t able to train last week every single time.”
Liverpool’s Champions League performances have been markedly better than those in the Premier League.
A 1-0 win over Real Madrid last time out was a third victory in four games for Liverpool in the first stage, putting the team in eighth place in the 36-club standings.
