Arne Slot witnessed his dreams of winning the European Treble go up in smokes with Liverpool’s elimination to the UEFA Champions League to Paris Saint-Germain.
The Ligue 1 side might’ve won 4-1 on a penalty shoot out, but they were the better team for the majority of two legs. Slot couldn’t replicate his heroics from the Premier League in Europe and was arguably too protective in his approach.
He was fortunate to see his side scrap a 1-0 win in the first leg, thanks to Alisson’s superheroic effort. The Dutchman might’ve taken PSG lightly in the second half, with some of his selections failing to impress. Diogo Jota looked clueless and lost in the centre-forward role, failing to disrupt the positioning of the two centre-backs.
The Dutch gaffer has also attracted criticism for his substitutions. Slot opted to make some interesting changes towards the final stages of the match. He opted to take off Alexis Mac Allister, who was having a good game with many chances created, after the end of the 90 minutes.
Jones came on for him, while the energetic Dominik Szoboszlai was also replaced in extra-time. Slot probably made these changes keeping in mind the upcoming Carabao Cup final against Newcastle United. But these particular changes perturbed fans because it seemed naïve on Slot’s part to take off his penalty specialists.
Slot didn’t even consider the impending possibility of a penalty shootout before making these changes. He ended up witnessing Jones, who replaced Mac Allister, miss one of the penalties and another one wasted by Darwin Nunez.
That could’ve been avoided if Liverpool had more natural penalty takers in their linenup for the shootout. Mac Allister, for one, has an excellent penalty record and has missed just one penalty out of 13 attempts in his domestic career. Similarly, Szoboszlai has converted 19 of 20 penalty attempts in his career.
There is a very strong chance that both midfielders would’ve scored their respective penalites and put more pressure on PSG in the shootout. In trying to preserve Liverpool’s chances of performing strongly in the Carabao Cup final, Slot’s mistakes ended up causing them to exit the European competition.
The Dutchman has also been criticized for not briging on Caiomhin Kelleher for the penalty shoot out. Kelleher proved his qualty from such situations by saving Kylian Mbappe’s penalty earlier this season. He could’ve perhaps stepped up to deny some of PSG’s efforts, with Alisson not coming close to saving any of the PSG penalties.
