Liverpool’s Arne Slot Faces Toughest Test After Fourth Straight Defeat

• Arne Slot says he does not believe Liverpool’s confidence is gone, despite four consecutive defeats.
• The head coach described life as “an ongoing challenge” after replacing Jurgen Klopp at Anfield.
• Slot insists missed chances, not controversy, cost Liverpool their 2-1 loss to Manchester United.

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot said he does not believe his players have lost confidence, but acknowledged he is facing a “challenge” after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United.

The loss, sealed by a late Harry Maguire goal, marked Liverpool’s fourth straight defeat for the first time since November 2014. The result leaves them fourth in the Premier League, four points behind leaders Arsenal.

Asked whether this represents the biggest test of his managerial career, Slot said: “I think as a manager you constantly face challenges. So when I just started, you face the challenge of being a new manager and then you need to win games. And when you do well, you go to a bigger club and people are like: ‘Let’s see how he does over there.’

“Then you go to being the successor of Jurgen Klopp and people say this is the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced. And then now we’ve lost four times in a row and that’s also a challenge.

“So the life of a football manager is an ongoing challenge. If you win games, you want to keep winning. If you lose games, you want to start winning again. So do we lose confidence? I cannot see it yet because every single game we’ve lost, we were able to create in the second half an unbelievable amount of chances.”

Reflecting on the team’s performance, Slot added: “If you look back at all the three games we’ve lost in the Premier League, I don’t think if you just put all the highlights behind each other, you would say it’s hardly possible that they lose this game. So we can keep producing what we are doing and do a few things a little bit better, then there’s every reason to expect that we start to win football games again.”

There was controversy over Bryan Mbeumo’s opening goal, as Alexis Mac Allister went down with a head injury in the buildup. Slot, however, refused to use the incident as an excuse.

“I think the main thing I should do now is not complain, blame or do these kind of things,” he said. “I think we could have done much better after Macca was on the floor. We should have done better.

“But the healthcare of a player is something that is important and if a player needs to have four stitches, you would hope that everybody understands that he needs immediate treatment. But it didn’t happen.

“But again, we could have done better. So that’s not the reason why we lost this game today. The reason is because we missed far too many chances to win a game of football.”

Liverpool will aim to avoid a fifth straight loss for the first time since 1953 when they host Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League on Wednesday.