Arne Slot refused to use the absence of Alexander Isak as an excuse after Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United on Sunday.
The Reds boss confirmed the £125m striker will return before the end of the season after missing the Old Trafford clash with a minor groin issue.
Liverpool were also without 17-goal top scorer Hugo Ekitike and Mohamed Salah due to injury.
United led by two at half-time, but Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo levelled early in the second half. Kobbie Mainoo then scored a late winner, with Slot declining to blame his attacking absentees for an 11th defeat of the season.
“No, Isak isn’t [out for the season],” Arne Slot confirmed. “We are expecting him back very soon.
“There is no excuse. I haven’t spoken about missing players and I won’t talk about it now.
“If we can play a second half like we did there is no necessity to have other players here.
“But we weren’t able, with this team, to have a chance of winning this game and we were quite close.
“But as always, one moment of switching off leads to us conceding the goal when there was a moment where it was – I think the Liverpool journalists recognise it so many teams this season – it was waiting for us to score one and then we conceded because we switched off for one or two seconds in a crucial moment.”
Slot added: “You know when you come here that they want to start strong and aggressive but we were aware of that.
“In the first six minutes, I saw us not picking up the second balls although we had a few moments where we pressed them high but if you concede after six minutes in this stadium, you always know you are going to face a struggle period afterwards.
“After us conceding, we controlled the ball possession but one of the first tmes after we lost the ball, they counterattacked us for the 2-0 and then everything we have done before deserves a lot of criticism.
“I don’t think there was many differences between first and second but we were able to control their counter-attacks better and created more from the ball possession we had.”
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