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Slot questions lack of stoppage time and cites fatigue as reason for loss

  /  autty

Liverpool boss Arne Slot felt his team were short-changed by the officials during Saturday's dramatic defeat at Bournemouth.

The reigning Premier League champions are now winless in five top-flight matches for the first time since 2021 after they went down 3-2 at the Vitality Stadium.

Amine Adli netted in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time, with four minutes having originally been added on by the officials.

Adli's goal came with the final kick of the match, but Slot believes Liverpool should have then had time to try and find a leveller, having already pulled themselves back from 2-0 down.

Slot was seen speaking with the officials at the end, and he told Sky Sports: "I think first of all we have to look at ourselves. It was more open. Both teams were trying to score a goal. They had better opportunities than us in the last 10 minutes and then in the end there was a long throw-in and they scored a goal.

"For me, four minutes of added time was not enough but in the end that didn't matter because they scored.

"Although then we could've maybe had two or three minutes but this game shouldn't have had four minutes of extra time. There was already a free-kick that took two or three minutes, there was VAR moments, there was substitutions. That's what I said to them, that four minutes wasn't enough."

Liverpool conceded a 90th-minute or later winning goal for the third time in the Premier League this season – their most ever in a single campaign in the competition.

They found themselves 2-0 down with just over 30 minutes played, however, and needed goals from Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai to restore parity before the late drama.

Liverpool were playing for the third time in the space of seven days, while the fixture marked their seventh outing of January, and Slot suggested his squad are feeling the fatigue begin to take hold.

He added: "Although we were 2-0 down at a certain point, it didn't feel to me that we deserved to be 2-0 down at the moment we were, but the players reacted really well.

"We came back to 2-2 and then I thought it was a very open game where both teams had their chances.

"They probably [had] even more than us, which shouldn't come as a complete surprise to me, knowing that we've played in Marseille and for the last four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 games we've had to play with the same players.

"Sometimes a few of them could be a bit tired. I think that's what you could see at the end as well."

Related: LiverpoolSlot