Arne Slot hits out at Liverpool player who was to blame for Crystal Palace winning goal

Arne Slot claimed that Liverpool could have avoided conceding a late goal in their defeat at Crystal Palace - and suggested that one player was to blame.

The Reds suffered their maiden loss of the Premier League campaign at Selhurst Park. Palace earned a 2-1 win, with Eddie Nketiah firing a 97th-minute winner.

Liverpool were lacklustre for much of the encounter, especially in the first half, with Ismaila Sarr’s ninth-minute opener the least that the Eagles deserved. The visitors did improve after the break and thought their latest intervention in the dying embers would rescue a point. Federico Chiesa came off the bench to bag with three minutes of normal time remaining.

But the Reds were unable to hold on for a share of the spoils. Liverpool failed to deal with a long throw-in and Nketiah was left unmarked at the back post.

Asked if Liverpool’s intention was to win the game after Chiesa had levelled, head coach Slot replied at his post-match press conference: “We had a lot of attacking players in our line-up at that moment but I don’t think many things happened in the extra time. By the way, the extra-time when we conceded was fair because they made a substitution and you add half a minute extra. I don’t know exactly when they scored but I assume it was between 96 and 96 [minutes] and 30 seconds.

“We can only blame ourselves. One of our players decided to run out because he wanted to player a counter-attack, which was of no use because time was up, so it was only about defending. Maybe we were too offensively minded - not we, one player was too offensively minded at that moment, which led to them scoring the winner, us losing the game.”

Both goals that Liverpool conceded against Palace were from set-pieces. They also shipped two goals from dead-ball scenarios in the 3-2 win at Newcastle United last month. However, Slot said he was not concerned by the trend but admitted that the Eagles were worthy of their triumph given that Reds goalkeeper Alisson Becker had to make a number of saves in the first half.

Slot added: “Against Newcastle, we conceded two set-pieces, they were the only two chances they had in that game. Today, they had more than only two set-piece goals. They didn’t score more but had chances from open play, from transition. There were more things not to like today other than defending set-pieces.

“The good thing was in the other moments, Alisson saved us. Palace have a few threats, set-pieces are one of them but counter-attacks and balls in behind are numbers two and three and from these situations, they created a lot of chances. We were able to create quite a lot against a Palace team that hardly concedes a chance. The first half, they totally deserved to win, the second half was a much better performance from us. If one team deserved to win, it was Palace.”