The Liverpool academy product came on for his senior bow in the 1-0 loss against Plymouth Argyle in the FA Cup.

Arne Slot has explained why he withdrew Isaac Mabaya after he had been brought off the bench for his Liverpool debut.

The youngster was handed an unexpected Reds bow in the shock 1-0 FA Cup loss to Plymouth Argyle. Slot made wholesale changes to his Liverpool starting line-up and bench, with defenders Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Conor Bradley and Andy Robertson rested while Trent Alexander-Arnold was injured.

After Joe Gomez suffered an injury and was subbed off inside 11 minutes, Slot gave academy product Mabaya a first senior outing. But the 20-year-old came off on 58 minutes for Darwin Nunez as the Reds searched for a way back into the fourth-round tie after Ryan Hardie netted a penalty for Plymouth.

What’s been said

Slot was spotted talking to Mabaya after he came off the pitch - and has given two reasons behind his decision. The Liverpool head coach said: “ I think it is a fantastic moment for every player to make your debut and for him as well. But I felt I had to take him off for two reasons.

“He was already on a yellow and it was a game with a lot of duels and a lot of intensity and that's their playing style. They bring a lot of long balls in, so if you're one time wrong then it's a yellow again, and it was a game that was hard enough with 11, let alone with 10.

“And I felt we needed to make an offensive substitution and the other three were Jarell [Quansah], Wata [Endo] and Kostas [Tsimikas] and that didn't seem smart to me to take one of these three off. I took that decision, and I thought I had to tell him because making your debut and then to be taken off after an hour or something like that is very disappointing for him of course.”

‘We hardly created anything’

Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch were the other regular outfield players who did not travel to Plymouth. But Liverpool, who top the Premier League table by six points, were still hevay favourites to beat a Plymouth side rooted to the bottom of the Championship.

Senior members of the squad who started included Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz, Federico Chiesa, Harvey Elliott, Wataru Endo and Kostas Tsimikas along with No.2 goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher. But the Reds were lacklustre at Home Park and while they rallied late, Argyle deserved their upset. Their opening came in the 53rd minute after Elliott conceded a penalty for handball, with Hardie keeping his cool.

On the defeat, Slot said: “The result is obvious, it's a big disappointment, and the way we played [there] wasn't a lot to be happy about as well. The only thing I was happy about is that the boys kept on fighting for 100 minutes and probably the best part of our game were the last 10 minutes.

“So, that tells you that they kept on fighting. But credit to them, a good game plan, they worked incredibly hard and they got a penalty that was deserved, because it was a clear penalty; a correct decision. But that had a lot of impact on the game, of course, because both teams hardly had any chances and all of a sudden you get a penalty kick. Again, which was the correct decision, but they were 1-0 up and kept on fighting until the end. The goalkeeper made one or two good saves in the end, but we hardly created anything at all.”