At least there was a concession from Slot that however many excuses he makes, losing 10 League games in a season will never be good enough for Liverpool.
He added: “At our club we’re also looking at the situation and the challenge we had during this season, and then we might be a bit more realistic, why the season has gone how it has gone. But still it’s not good enough no matter how many excuses I can come up with, it’s still not good enough for the position we’re in right now.
“It [losing 10 games] says a few things. First of all, it says how and what great teams Liverpool has had in the last 10 years and a great manager. Then I could come up and tell you all the reasons why we have lost this season. You just heard about late goals and I think today sums it all up in terms of injury problems in this season. To go without three great goalscorers never helped any team and against the right full-back position.
“That’s not my job to find excuses, my job is to find answers and that’s what I tried to do again today. That worked out, in my opinion, not too bad in the first 45 minutes because we were playing with them and we were in my opinion close. They were a few times close, we were a few times close. In the second half they were the better team.”
Liverpool have not lost 10 games in a League season since 2015-16 and the Reds were beaten only eight times in both of the last two campaigns combined.
Only five previous Premier League champions have lost 10 or more games in the following season. Leicester City’s 18 defeats are out of reach, but Liverpool could easily beat Blackburn Rovers’ 13.
Having lost Mohammed Salah and Alisson Becker before the trip, for which Liverpool had 62 hours to prepare, Slot was dealt another blow inside the first 10 minutes when Hugo Ekitike was forced off with a dead leg.
But none of that accounts for the appalling defending of Frimpong and Ibrahima Konaté, who were terrorised by Yankuba Minteh, or the over-reliance on Dominik Szoboszlai, who is counted on to produce a moment of individual brilliance in every game.
Liverpool scored through Milos Kerkez, thanks to a mistake from Lewis Dunk and created barely any chances of their own.
The fact that Liverpool were outrun by a team in which 35-year-old Danny Welbeck, who scored twice, and 40-year-old James Milner started should be a source of grave concern.