Dominik Szoboszlai’s free-kick gave the Reds the lead, but Richarlison equalized late in the game. This leaves Liverpool fifth in the table and means they will struggle in earnest to secure qualification for next season’s Champions League. After Sunday’s draw at Anfield, Pennant said he was baffled by some of the decisions made by Slott.
The former winger posted on social media: “Someone please help me, please help me understand why 1) (Ugo) Ekitike is not starting, 2) (he) rests Rio and (Cody) Gakpo, and 3) (he) rests (Jeremy) Frimpong and then leaves Szoboszlai at RB.”
In response to a fan, he added: “But if we (were able to see), and I think most fans would agree, there’s no way the people in charge wouldn’t see this. There must be something going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about, because this is blasphemy.”
Slott gave his thoughts on Liverpool’s recent disappointing results, criticizing his team’s failure to score the second goal and seal the win.
In the post-match press conference, the Dutchman said: “For most of the game we were the better team, but I think that’s the moment when we should have scored the second goal. I think we had quite a few moments to do that and in the more even parts of the game, the last 15 to 20 minutes, both teams were waiting for one of them to score.”
“They all created chances in the same way and in those four or five moments they put up long balls, picked up second balls and tried to be a threat in those moments.
“We picked up a lot of second balls where we could have counter-attacked, but all those counter-attacks, 4-on-3, 3-on-2, all those moments where we felt with our quality players, we felt like we should have had a bigger chance or scored when we had, but we didn’t do that and we conceded the equalizer at the last minute and we didn’t have a lot of time to recover from that.”
Liverpool will return to action in the middle of this week when they host Galatasaray at Anfield in the second leg of the Champions League last 16. The Reds need to overturn a 1-0 deficit following the defeat in Türkiye.
They will face Brighton in their next Premier League match.
