Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has been blasted after the Premier League giants were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Plymouth Argyle.
Slot has barely put a foot wrong since replacing beloved former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp as the English side are flying in the Premier League and Champions League.
Liverpool has been in a position to challenge on all four fronts, and they have booked their place in the Carabao Cup final. However, they exited the FA Cup in the fourth round on Sunday afternoon.
Head coach Slot selected a weakened team and rested most of his top stars ahead of Wednesday’s match against Everton and Liverpool were punished in a 1-0 loss against the Championship strugglers.
Liverpool still had enough quality on the pitch to get past Plymouth, but their senior stars underperformed as their inferior opponents pulled off a huge shock.
READ: Eight Liverpool players Arne Slot should look to discard this summer
Following this result, presenter Kelly Cates has claimed that this loss could be the “beginning of the end” for Slot’s side.
“There were goals in that team. It just was a really low-key performance. I think it’s either going to be a blip in a fantastic season, or the beginning of the end, and this will be marked as the turning point of the of the whole season!”
On the team Liverpool put out against Plymouth, Cates continued: “There’s been talk about the starting 11. As you said, 10 changes, and obviously there was going to be one in in in terms of the goalkeeper; there was an early injury to Joe Gomez as well.
“But I think even with all of that, that was still an 11 that should have been able to beat a team like Plymouth, at wrong end of the championship, who’ve been on that terrible run of form. So they should have been good enough.”
MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 ‘Very seduced’ Liverpool star ‘wants to play for Barcelona’ in ‘most worrying’ transfer update
👉 Slot reveals one Liverpool star ‘definitely’ out vs Everton in Alexander-Arnold update – ‘it’s a concern’
👉 Jamie Carragher reveals ‘reason’ for Alexander Isak to snub Arsenal for ‘desperate’ Liverpool
Dutch analysts Johan Derksen and Rene van der Gijp have also stuck the boot in after their compatriot made a “big blunder” against Plymouth.
“Our friend Slot has also made a big blunder now, right? He was more or less declared holy. Going to Plymouth Argyle with a team with substitutes is very unwise,” started Derksen.
Van der Gijp replied: “You know what he thought, of course, Johan? It looked pretty good against PSV.”
To which, Derksen responded: “Indeed, it wasn’t bad then. But the fourth round of the cup final in England, that costs a lot of money.”
Journalist Valentijn Driessen added: “The worst thing I found was that he said afterwards: ‘I don’t regret it’. If you make such a mistake, you should just regret it.
“His reasoning was really rubbish. He said: ‘My A-players would have had trouble with Plymouth too, because they have a kick and rush tactic’. This is the first time that he has demonstrably made a blunder.”
