Arne Slot admits Liverpool's Premier League hangover 'hurts a lot'

Arne Slot says Liverpool's faltering season 'hurts a lot' as the champions fell to their 10th league defeat at Brighton.

Danny Welbeck scored a brace and Brighton were the better team as the Seagulls recorded their fourth win in their last five to ignite their own European charge and subsequently put another dent in Liverpool's hopes of finishing in the Champions League places.

And a downbeat Slot said: 'Of course now, looking at the league table, this loss hurts a lot. It should hurt a lot.

'The main problem is that we dropped points at Wolves with a deflected goal and then a week ago we had to play on Sunday (against Tottenham)... that goal in the 90th minute is even a bigger problem than losing away at Brighton.'

He added: 'It makes complete sense if you won the league last season and you spent £450million that the expectations are high, and those expectations were high for the pundits, for the media, for me, for the fans.

'At our club we're also looking at the situation and the challenge we had during this season, and then we might be a bit more realistic, why the season has gone how it is gone.

'But still it's not good enough no matter how many excuses I can come up with, it's still not good enough the position we're in right now.'

Asked about the unwanted record of losing more games than any Liverpool team since 2016, Slot said: 'It says a few things. First of all, it says how and what great teams Liverpool has had in the last 10 years and a great manager.

'Then I could come up and tell you all the reasons why we have lost this season. You just heard about late goals and I think today sums it all up in terms of injury problems in this season. To go without three great goalscorers never helped any team and against the right full-back position.

'That's not my job to find excuses, my job is to find answers and that's what I tried to do again today. That worked out, in my opinion, not too bad in the first 45 minutes because we were playing with them and we were in my opinion close.

'They were a few times close, we were a few times close. In the second half they were the better team.'

Goalkeeper Alisson wrote on Instagram that he will be out for 'a while' after missing this trip. The Brazilian will skip the upcoming international camp with a hamstring issue but Slot could not offer a more definite timeline on recovery when asked.

Striker Hugo Ekitike's problem was a dead leg and he should be OK for France's international meet-up this week.

'Hugo could play tomorrow if he had to,' Slot added. 'It was a dead leg. It was a collision that led to him going off. It was not helpful.'

Meanwhile, Hurzeler said of Welbeck's England omission: 'It's not on me to judge this decision. The only thing I can say is that I said afterwards to Danny, to control the controllables and that's what he did today on the pitch.

'He created his own record by scoring his 12th goal. The media will go hard on this but besides that for me even more important for a team is how he functions as a connector.

'He's always there to connect the different ages. To connect the different cultures we have in our team. To be there as a social leader. If you want to achieve something in a World Cup that's an attitude that definitely helps.

'Therefore we keep pushing him, we keep trying to support him and hopefully one day he gets the rewards for what he's doing on and off the pitch.'