Liverpool manager Arne Slot was clearly not happy with how his side struggled to play against nine men despite them holding on to a 2-1 win away to Tottenham.
Slot, speaking in his post-match press conference, said that thankfully it didn’t lead to a goal, but made it clear that he expected an easier finish to the match.
Xavi Simons was sent off in the first half, with Liverpool then going 2-0 up at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Richarlison pulled one back shortly before Cristian Romero was then also shown a red card, but Slot felt it was still one attack after another from Spurs despite LFC having a two-player advantage.
Arne Slot’s dig at Liverpool players
Slot even said it felt more like his side were down to nine men rather than Tottenham, with the Dutch tactician clearly not happy with his players’ handling of the game…
? "It felt like WE were the ones down to nine men!"
Arne Slot's dig at his Liverpool players as they only just held on against 9-man Tottenham ? pic.twitter.com/KmOgXcmTNN
— CaughtOffside (@caughtoffside) December 20, 2025
“To be honest, I thought against nine we would be able to keep them away from our goal,” Slot said.
“But it looked as if we were down to nine, because it was attack after attack after attack.”
Liverpool dealt injury blow despite win vs Tottenham
One piece of bad news for Liverpool against Spurs was the Alexander Isak injury.
The Sweden international has endured a nightmare since moving to Anfield in the summer, struggling to stay fit and barely making an impact on the pitch.
Slot discussed the Isak injury and it doesn’t sound too promising at the moment, though there’s no concrete medical update yet.
Click here for our Liverpool player ratings and watch the goal highlights here.
The reasons behind Slot success last season was that he made no chanes on the way LFC played under Klop, he tweaked here & there .In this season he introduced his philosophy,which is too slow in my opinion.That snail’s pace enables team to mark them easily.Further there is no intensity& movement which makes them predictable.
It is common knowledge Coaches praise their players to boost the moral hence ﹰFrank saw his team character etc.Frank’s game plan was to stop LFC playing by disrupting to get rhythm.Knowing of our slump he tried to use agressiveness to intimidate us.
My view is that Isak was seriously injured and he may be out for few weeks and that will leave us bare bone.We will struggle to qualify for UCL.If we quantify the number of injuries ,we have more than five injured players & perhaps we will have more by end of Dec.