Arne Slot clearly hasn’t learnt from a big mistake that cost Liverpool dearly last season - opinion
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Things might be starting to get a little hot under the collar for Arne Slot.The Reds have had a rather disappointing end to a much-improved week as they followed up back-to-back wins with an abysmal loss to Man City.They were, by far, the worse of the two teams, with the 3-0 scoreline, even though most of the goals were a little lucky, probably still a fair reflection of how the game went as a whole.Join our newsletter for news & smart analysis. Slot certainly has a lot to think about and needs to find a way to get Liverpool competing consistently again, with it seeming to be the same mistakes costing them week in, week out.There is one big error that he admitted to last season, though, that cost them dearly, and based on the last week, he clearly has not learnt from it.Photo by Shaun Brooks – CameraSport via Getty ImagesArne Slot needs to learn how to rotateThere is nothing wrong with knowing your strongest XI and wanting to keep them together as much as possible, but based on how many games Liverpool must play, rotation is essential.Slot learnt that the hard way last season and he admitted that his lack of rotation cost them the Carabao Cup final and the Champions League.“What I did was, and everyone will have noticed, I played a lot of time with the same players,” Slot told Ally McCoist in an interview with TNTSports back in September.“I think that cost us in March, though, with the League Cup final, although Newcastle played very well and deserved to win, let’s make that very clear.”However, he has not seemed to have learnt as across the three games Liverpool have had in one week, he made just one change, this being Florian Wirtz for Cody Gakpo for the latter two matches.Although this is probably the Reds’ best XI, they looked leggy against Man City and fatigue had set in from early on, likely due to many playing too much in a short period of time.READ MORE: Ibrahima Konate’s performance for Liverpool vs Man City has just proven Jamie Carragher absolutely rightThis is one of the things that cost them the game as they could not get close to City or lay a glove on them, with Slot needing to learn how to rotate his team more.Who should Arne Slot have started vs Man City?It is so much easier to say what Slot could have done in hindsight, so he deserves to be cut a little bit of slack, but there are still some obvious changes he could have made.Curtis Jones probably should have come in for Alexis Mac Allister as, although the Argentine has been much better in recent weeks, three 90 minutes in one week is a lot given his previous fitness issues.As well as this, Jones, like always, would have been raring to go and up for a game like this one, with energy something that was missing.Gakpo may have also been a good call given the physicality of the game, while someone like Federico Chiesa could have added a lot down the right, even though all fans know Slot would not have done that.Overall, Slot’s choices for this game really were not the right ones, with this something he needs to keep in mind going forward.
