Arne Slot Involves Liverpool Youngsters in Final Chapter of Misery After Sack Confirmation
The majority of those 60,000 supporters will have found little solace in Arne Slot’s claim that he is attempting to “create a pathway” for young players “to play in front of 60,000 people” as justification for his team and squad selection.
Instead of watching the kids lose a rare game of football, they would have preferred to watch the senior Liverpool team front up and possibly win one.
Even if their management hadn’t disclosed the second, far stronger justification for giving up this match to Crystal Palace, they would still have been able to see through that poor excuse.
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“If we keep playing the same players, like, for example, Alexander Isak, with players that are missed out on preseason, that is a big risk of another injury, and we only have 15 or 16 senior players available right now,” Slot continued.
Following the announcement of the team’s news, social media was flooded with confused and irate Liverpool supporters.
Many saw Slot’s selection of the squad as an admission that the Dutchman didn’t give a damn about the team’s success in the Carabao Cup or even a win to lift them out of their slump.
That lack of interest was demonstrated by ten changes to the starting lineup and six players on the bench with squad numbers in the 90s.
This suggests that Slot feels his Liverpool stars need a break more than the team needs a victory, which is quite something after five straight Premier League losses.
It is true that Liverpool and other teams have historically utilised the Carabao Cup to blood young players.
Whether correctly or incorrectly, it is seen as a free hit. While a win would be good, the most important thing is to rest tired first-team players.
However, the free hit and the rest ought to be a luxury earned by respectable performances and outcomes.
Slot will be hoping that the narrative following this game will centre on the notion that “it doesn’t really count” as a defeat due to the two teams’ relative experience, but their terrible run negates that usual leeway.
After a game like this, the youngsters would typically be praised for making their club proud, win, lose, or draw.
Rather, the emphasis will be on the reasons behind Slot’s decision to target them with shots that ought to have been directed at the overpaid flops who have drastically declined this season in order to put them in a difficult situation.
This should be a game to cheer up the young players, but Slot has made them part of the suffering.
They learnt from what will have been one of the few, if not their first, tastes of life as a Liverpool player at Anfield that it’s a stadium full of silent, depressed fans who are understandably annoyed to be watching them while Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, and the rest of them watched on in their cosy coats.
It would have been understandable for Liverpool supporters to question the purpose of sticking to witness the second half after Ismaila Sarr scored his fourth and fifth goals against them in rapid succession shortly before halftime.
With the roster of teenagers Slot had to rely upon from the bench, there was little chance of a return.
Even though a Carabao Cup loss is insignificant under normal circumstances and might not be more than a footnote in a list of misdemeanours when Slot is judged, his total disdain for a football game during this crisis.
The unjustified break he’s given to the multimillionaire players who have participated, and the way he’s dressed up these young players being hung out to dry as an opportunity make this much more of a factor in the admittedly premature sack talk than it would otherwise.
This game counted, no doubt about it. The current Premier League champions have lost six of their last seven games.
