Arne Slot admits Liverpool are not helping themselves in the race for the top four after slumping to yet another demoralising late Premier League defeat.
The Reds were beaten 2-1 at rock-bottom Wolves on Tuesday evening when Andre’s shot deflected in off Joe Gomez in the fourth minute of additional time.
Slot’s side had seemingly escaped with a point when Mohamed Salah scored his first goal in 11 Premier League games five minutes after substitute Rodrigo Gomes had give the home team a 78th-minute lead.
But a fifth injury-time loss in the top flight this season means Liverpool missed the chance to move into an automatic Champions League qualification berth and offered encouragement to near rivals Manchester United, Aston Villa and Chelsea.
“My expectations haven’t changed throughout the season because I expected more than we are fighting for now,” said Slot.
“It’s another setback and we didn’t help ourselves with this result, not at all. But there are still nine games to play. We are coming closer and closer to the end.
“Dropping points in a game where it’s absolutely not necessary. If you look at the run of play, I’m not saying we played great, but if we play this game in this fashion 10 times we don’t lose 10 times.
“It’s far from sure that we win every time, therefore we are not good enough.
“If we don’t have to rely on a deflected shot, we have to play better and do better. But we’ve had enough chances to win the game.”
Slot added: “Credit to Wolves as well. They fight from first second until the end and got maybe a bit of a luck they deserve when you look at how much they put in throughout the whole game.
“They made it really hard for us and compact. In the first half, I showed the players at half-time it was possible to play a bit faster from side to side then the few times we did in the first half the wingers at least had some time to take the full-back on.
“That happened better in the second half more and that’s why we came closer. We had more crosses, penetrated more in the box but then it’s also about finishing off those moments and picking the right player in front of goal.
“When you are so slow or predictable are words I can understand he (Van Dijk) uses, but if you want to go faster you have to be able to dominate situations on the sides because something can then happen and we struggled to do that today.”
Slot refused to point the finger at individuals over the winning goal, which came when Liverpool coughed up possession cheaply in midfield having defended a Wolves attack.
“We won the ball through Curtis Jones, who played it back to Ali who cleared it 30-35 yards away and their player took the ball, dribbled forward and scored the goal,” he said.
“What did we do wrong in that situation? Maybe if we did it one more time over maybe Curtis clears the ball himself. You can always do things different.
“But a deflected shot, I have to see how he puts his body in front of the ball but whether it’s just bad luck. But it’s not the first time the ball goes in from a deflection, there was Sunderland at home as well.”
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