‘My mistake’ – Arne Slot admits contrition over his treatment of ‘big talent’ at Liverpool

Arne Slot has admitted that he may have made a ‘mistake’ over his usage of one Liverpool player in the FA Cup win over Barnsley on Monday night.

In stark contrast to last year, the Dutchman selected a mostly full-strength starting XI for the competition, and he was still able to bring Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike off the bench to score in an eventual 4-1 victory.

Despite the seemingly comfortable final scoreline, though, it wasn’t until the German’s goal in the 84th minute that the result felt secure, with the Tykes trailing 2-1 for most of the second half and causing a few moment of concern for the home side at Anfield.

Slot owns up to ‘mistake’ over Nyoni

In reflecting on the match, Slot confessed that he might have erred by waiting until the 88th minute to bring on Trey Nyoni, having introduced a more experienced midfielder in Ryan Gravenberch (to replace Rio Ngumoha) 15 minutes beforehand.

Speaking to LFCTV, the Liverpool head coach said: “I feel really sorry for Trey because maybe it was my mistake, but at 2-1 I thought I had to make the substitutions to win the game instead of giving a young player who is training so hard every single day and is such a big talent the playing time he might deserve.

“I thought, ‘Let’s bring Ryan in first’, and that all had to do with us conceding the 2-1, because usually a game like this should go to three and then maybe more.”

Will Nyoni have much scope for game-time for rest of the season?

Ideally Liverpool would’ve had a multi-goal buffer much earlier in the second half, thus providing more scope for youngsters like Nyoni – who James Pearce described as an ‘important part’ of the head coach’s plans – to enjoy a decent runout in a relatively low-pressure situation.

We can understand Slot being cautious about throwing the 18-year-old in at the deep end when the game was still in the balance, although a 20- or 25-minute appearance for the teenager would’ve been a good test against a Barnsley side who played much better than their position of 17th in League One would suggest.

The midfielder enjoyed his first couple of Premier League appearances over the Christmas period, but similar to Monday night, both of those came in the final few minutes when he didn’t really have any time to prove what he can offer to the first team.

Nyoni might continue to find opportunities limited for the rest of the season, given the increasingly high stakes in the matches that Liverpool have remaining, although a win away to Marseille next week (and duly the high probability of a top-eight Champions League finish) might see him utilised for longer in the concluding league phase fixture at home to Qarabag.

It’s to Slot’s credit that he owned up to what he feels was a ‘mistake’ on his part on Monday, although there’ll now be greater scrutiny on how much game-time he hands to the 18-year-old in the coming months.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Barnsley press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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