BOURNEMOUTH, England — Manager Arn Slott admitted Liverpool “ran out of energy” in their 3-2 loss to AFC Bournemouth and said they had only themselves to blame for dropping more points in the Premier League.
The Reds came back from two goals down at the Vitality Stadium and Amin Adli’s winning goal in the 95th minute sealed all three points for the hosts.
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This means Slot’s side are currently winless in five league games and have only picked up four points from their last 15 games.
Liverpool remain in fourth place, 14 points behind leaders Arsenal, but could end the weekend in eighth place.
“It’s always frustrating to concede a goal, but even more so when you don’t have time to get it back,” the Liverpool manager said. “But I think it’s fair to say they could have made it to 3-2 a little earlier. When we made it to 2-2, we were still trying, but I think it’s fair to say a few of our guys ran out of energy.
“I can’t even criticize them because two days ago we were playing away in Europe and we were the only team to play in the Champions League on Wednesday and there are only two days in between and we have another away game against one of the most competitive teams in the league.”
Slott made just one change to his line-up, bringing on Kodi Gakpo for Hugo Ekitike, and recorded a 3-0 Champions League win at Marseille on Wednesday night.
Liverpool’s injury list includes defenders Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni, and forwards Alexander Isak and Federico Chiesa.
“As you can see, I mainly played with the same players because of who we have,” Slott added.
“Then it shouldn’t have happened if you have to win at the end, because it’s more difficult. You saw it in the last 10 minutes because we dominated the game the rest of the time.”
Liverpool conceded two goals in seven minutes in the first half, during which they also lost defender Joe Gomez to injury.
With Wataru Endo still waiting to replace the injured Gomez, Slott’s side were briefly reduced to 10 men when Alex Jimenez scored Bournemouth’s second goal seven minutes later, but Gomez collided with goalkeeper Alisson Becker as he tried to prevent the opening goal.
When asked if this period was the cause of the result, Slott said: “I can’t say we were struggling, but the other team was only in the game for seven minutes, and in those seven minutes we conceded two goals.
“The second time, of course, was when we were down by 10 points, because after the first goal Joe Gomez had to go off with an injury. He wanted to try. I thought he could, but he couldn’t.”
“And that might sum up our season. It’s something different every time. Every time we concede, it’s something special. But we conceded and we only have ourselves to blame.”
PA contributed to this report.
