Arne Slot served the second part of his two-game domestic touchline ban this afternoon as Liverpool came from behind to beat Southampton 3-1, although he was allowed to address his players at the interval – and it was just as well!
The Reds went in at half-time reeling from the sucker punch of a Will Smallbone goal as the Saints midfielder pounced on a rare mix-up between Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk to break the deadlock and give the Premier League’s bottom club a shock lead.
It seemed inevitable that the home players would be in for a bit of a dressing down from the head coach, and so it proved.
Slot let rip at Liverpool players at half-time
Mo Salah revealed after the match that Slot let his Liverpool side know in no uncertain terms that he was far from happy with what he witnessed from the stands in the first half.
When asked if the players got an interval rollocking, the Egytian replied (via liverpoolfc.com): “[There was] a bit of frustration. The manager, his head, was like going for us – but that’s something you need sometimes.
“First half, the game was sloppy, we just were slow and taking our time and in the last minute they managed to [go ahead in] the game. But we are now more experienced, we can manage that situation and I’m glad that we did.”
Slot’s half-time message clearly got through to the players!
Even allowing for Liverpool having a fiendishly tough Champions League game away to Paris Saint-Germain less than 72 hours previously, the Reds were unacceptably off-colour in the first half against Southampton, and there was no excuse for the misundertstanding which led to Smallbone’s goal.
LFC already had such a comfortable lead at the top of the Premier League that dropped points wouldn’t have felt overly detrimental to their pursuit of the title, but failing to win at home to the division’s bottom side (who’ve won just two top-flight games all season) would’ve been quite sobering.
Thankfully the players gave Slot the reaction that he would’ve demanded at half-time, with Darwin Nunez equalising and Salah converting two penalties to take him into outright third place in the club’s all-time goalscoring charts.
The Liverpool head coach has now served his touchline ban and will be back where he belongs for our next domestic fixture, the Carabao Cup final against Newcastle in eight days’ time. Before then, there’s a job to finish against a far from gracious PSG outfit on Tuesday!
