'We were outplayed in their style' - Arne Slot insists Liverpool's Carabao Cup final defeat to Newcastle had 'nothing to do with running'

Liverpool looked like the outright favourites to win the Carabao Cup final against Newcastle United at Wembley due to their status as runaway Premier League leaders. However, what followed was utter domination by Eddie Howe's side as goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak were too much for the Reds, despite Federico Chiesa's injury-time strike past Nick Pope. Questions have been raised over Liverpool players' fitness levels after the loss, however, Slot has turned away those suggestions.

Speaking to the media, Slot said when questioned about fatigue, having also seen his team suffer a gruelling penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last week: "Mentally, it’s always difficult to judge. Were we on Tuesday, mentally or physically tired? No. But this game had nothing to do with running; this game had only to do with playing duels, and there was no intensity in terms of running in this game at all. So you cannot even judge it if we were tired yes or no, physically, because we could not press them.

"You can judge a team if they are tired and they press. But there was nothing to press because they played over our press. If they got a goal-kick or if they got a free-kick – which they had quite a lot of in the first half – they every time brought it into our last line, which led to a lot of set-pieces."

Slot, however, admitted that Liverpool were "outplayed" by Newcastle at Wembley Stadium and claimed that the Magpies were deserving winners.

Slot added: "We were outplayed in their style, yeah, that’s true. That is what you can call outplayed. Yeah, they won more duels than us. Is that what you mean? Is that outworking? Or is that one of their biggest qualities to play so much [with] aerial duels and to win these physique duels?

"Outplayed for me is if you don’t touch the ball and they play through you every single time we tried to press them, every time you’re too late. That is for me outplayed.

"But I agree with you if you say that they deserved to win because the game went in the way they wanted it to go. Yes, they deserved to win, but it wasn’t like we were only running after them. We had to defend a lot of long balls [and] second balls and that’s their strength."

Slot will now have to focus solely on the league as Liverpool will be keen to avoid a late collapse to let Arsenal sneak back into the title race. The Reds are sitting 12 points clear of the Gunners with only ten games remaining and will face local rivals Everton in their next game after the international break.