Arne Slot rejected the idea that Newcastle United was “hungry” than Liverpool in the EFL Cup final.
Slot watched while goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak Eddie How's side places two goals for the good before Federico Chiesa halved the shortage in the second half of the stopping time, but Newcastle stuck to win 2-1 and an end of 70 years of waiting for a large domestic trophy.
It was a disappointing representation of the Premier League leaders, who had difficulty creating any opportunities until replacement Curtis Jones Nick Pope tested after the goal of Isak.
Liverpool indeed registered an expected goals (XG) in total only 0.89 of their seven shots, of which only two were on goal.
And although Slot admitted that the side of Eddie Howe earned winners on the day, the Dutchman claimed that the drought of the Magpies trophy no longer gave his opponents motivation.
“It's 70 years since they might have won a trophy for the last time, but that's for the fans,” said Slot.
“The players only have 15 years to play football and they want to win every trophy for which they compete. That is also what we want.
“It was a game that went the road [Newcastle] Wanted it to go and they got some extra energy with the goal just before half -time, which they probably deserved after the first 45 minutes because they threatened us more than we threatened them. I don't think there was more hunger of them. “
Thank you for all your support this afternoon at Wembley.
Safe trip home and we will see you again next month on Anfield, Reds pic.twitter.com/shvxxb4d8u
– Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 16, 2025
It marked a few days before Liverpool, which were beaten from the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain in the midweek by Paris Saint-Germain.
Slot's only chance to win a trophy in his debut season on MerseSide is now based on the Premier League, with the lead of the Reds on top now a healthy 12 points after the 1-0 win of Arsenal over Chelsea earlier on Sunday.
But when he was asked about the impact of their defeat to PSG, Slot said that it was not impeding his players.
However, he admitted that his team played to a certain extent in Newcastle's hands.
“Were we mentally or physically tired? No. But this game had nothing to do with running,” he said.
“This game had to do only with duels and there was no intensity in terms of running at all. You can't even judge it if we were tired. We couldn't press them.
“You can judge a team if they are tired when they press, but there was nothing to press while they played over our press.
“Disappointing results, disappointing performance. Losing twice in a row is something else [for us]But that is probably also something to do with going to the last stages of tournaments, with very heavy teams in Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle.
“It was a tough week, but it was also a week when we expanded our lead [in the league]So it wasn't all negative, but the last two games were not the way we wanted them to be. “
Liverpool now has to wait until April 2 to try to make up for their bad results, with local rivals Everton who visits Anfield.
“I would like to have played next week, but now they go to their national teams, and then we are confronted with Everton, and we know how difficult that will be,” said Slot.
0 – For the first time in his career in Liverpool, Mohamed Salah nor a shot tried or did not create a chance in a match where he played 90+ minutes. Not characteristic. pic.twitter.com/yyn9zyaf7d
– Optajoe (@Optajoe) March 16, 2025
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