Liverpool manager Arne Slot firmly rebuffed suggestions made by Everton forward Jack Grealish that the Reds were reduced to timewasting during last weekend’s Merseyside derby.
Slot’s side romped into a 2–0 lead inside the opening half-hour of Saturday lunchtime’s clash, limiting Everton to little more than a snatched glimpse of goal. However, a draining run of fixtures decided by last-minute winners over the previous six days soon caught up to the reigning league champions.
As the Dutch boss subsequently admitted: “The second half was more difficult because of Everton of course, but also because we ran a bit out of energy.”
Grealish slung a high cross to the back post which Iliman Ndiaye brought down for Idrissa Gueye to blast beyond Alisson in the 58th minute, halving the deficit and doubling the nerves of an Anfield crowd that was getting twitchy.
In their efforts to nab an equaliser, Everton were frustrated by some of the referees calls. Grealish was particularly bemused by Darren England’s decision to book Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall while he also questioned the additional time tacked on to the end of each half.
“The stoppage time, three minutes and one minute—I’ve never seen that in the Premier League in the last two or three years,” he lamented, insisting that Liverpool “were obviously trying to slow the game down.”
Slot emphatically disagreed. “A lot has been said about the added time against Everton but I would have loved to play 34 seconds more because we were in a five-v-two situation at that moment,” he snapped back on Monday.
“Now that tells you, I think, all about the mentality we have, always wanting to score a goal. The three minutes were completely correct because there were only three moments where a substitution was made.
“There was no timewasting because that’s not what we do and there was no treatment of injuries, one goal scored. Then you come to three [minutes]. Where in many other games when we need a goal, there’s a lot, a lot, a lot of timewasting going on, I can tell you.”
The amount of added time is at the referee’s discretion but Grealish is well within his rights to suggest that four minutes across two halves of football is a low figure in the modern Premier League. Across Liverpool’s previous four fixtures this season, there has been an average of nine and a half minutes added.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Not What We Do’—Arne Slot Hits Back at Jack Grealish Accusation.