Joe Gomez lifts lid on Liverpool dressing room talks and responds to boos - 'it does hurt'

Below is a summary of the full article. Click here for the full version from Echo or go back to LFC Live.

It's the last thing we want. I hope you could see the urgency that we want to win.“I guess it just is a summary of our year and it's a reaction to the whole year, and that's fair enough.

The fans pay their hard-earned money to come and watch us and they're entitled to show their frustration, in the same way they cheer us."Asked if it felt the boos were largely directed at Liverpool boss Arne Slot, Gomez replied: “I can’t engage or give you a guide on that but, fundamentally, if we win the game, there's no boos so that's the bit that we have to do and that's all we can try and affect."There was particularly loud dissent against the decision of Slot to substitute Rio Ngumoha midway through the second half, although it later transpired the 17-year-old winger had intimated he needed to come off due to cramp."To give a perspective from the bench, Rio's young and he played in a high-intensity game," said Gomez, who replaced Ibrahima Konate at centre-back during the final quarter on Saturday. But he's flying, he looks good for us, he’s a big threat and if he comes off it’s like ‘oh’ and the fans are entitled to that opinion."Liverpool brought in a record-breaking £450million of signings last summer and many have suffered issues integrating, whether that be through fitness concerns, major injury setbacks or adapting to English football.And Gomez, who is the squad's longest-serving player, admits there has been a conscious effort from the senior members to drill into the arrivals the unique demands of playing for the outgoing Premier League champions.“We don't just come in and go home every day," said the 28-year-old.

I think if things change in any workplace in terms of personnel it's always going to take a bit of time."But there's a lot of variables that are at play and there's a lot of instruction we've got this year that worked well last year, so who's to say what the factor is? I don't think anyone could tell you exactly, but I think the main thing is that we're a team and we understand that in the dressing room we don't come in after a result like that without disappointment."We have to remember that tactically we made a step last year which was very effective and one of the strengths of our coaching staff is to adapt every game and try to expose and overload in certain areas and that that is a different style to the faster pace."We get that sometimes it's not as fluid or as high intensity on the ball as always.