Arne Slot admits he got it wrong with Harvey Elliott after mistake – ‘A bit out of line’

After Liverpool’s victory over Southampton, Arne Slot made an admission about young midfielder and match-winner against Paris Saint-Germain, Harvey Elliott

Arne Slot has admitted that leaving Harvey Elliott out of his starting line-up for Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Southampton may have been the wrong decision.

As a reward for scoring a last-minute winner in the 1-0 Champions League victory over Paris Saint-Germain, Elliott found himself on the bench against the Saints. After a poor first half where the Merseysiders gifted Will Smallbone a goal on the stroke of half-time, Slot hauled off Curtis Jones and introduced Elliott.

The 21-year-old was one of two other players the Dutchman brought on, with the Premier League leaders trailing. The substitution paid off, as Liverpool turned the game around with a goal from Darwin Nunez and a brace of penalties from Mohamed Salah.

The result has widened the gap between Liverpool and Arsenal to 16 points. After the match, Slot admitted that, in hindsight, snubbing Elliott may have been an error of judgement.

When asked by the Liverpool Echo if it was difficult to leave Elliott out of the starting line-up, Slot said: “It is always a difficult decision not to start Harvey, not to start Wata (Wataru Endo), not to start all the other ones I don’t play.

“But if someone comes in for five minutes, touches his first ball and scores a goal and then you change your whole idea about all the line-ups you made before, that would be a bit out of line – a bit weird as well.

“He got 45 minutes today because he did so well in Paris. But there’s also a reason why I played so many times the other ones and all the time they deserved that trust.

“But today, if I could do it one more time over, I would have started it differently than I started today…but you don’t know this in advance.”

When asked if there are enough games for Elliott to break into Liverpool’s midfield, the Dutchman said: “Yeah, there is enough time; we play nine more games in the Premier League and hopefully a few more in the Champions League as well and one more in the League Cup.

“What it is with him is also with other players; they are in competition with so many good players and that makes it sometimes difficult to make a line-up. But it always helps to bring in performances like this, for him but also for Wata. He came in 15 minutes before the end again and showed how important he is for this team and the others as well.”

On reflection, Slot may have wished that he deployed Elliott over Dominik Szoboszlai. The Hungarian, who played the full 90 minutes against PSG, was brought off at half-time in place of Alexis Mac Allister.

Slot admitted the clash against the Saints may have been 45 minutes too much for the ex-RB Leipzig midfielder and that he had made a mistake. Slot added: “Every time I am sitting here and talking about Dominik, I’m talking about he is a machine. He can keep on going, running and running and running.

“It was maybe the first time this season I saw a different energy from him, which is maybe normal. Maybe I made a mistake by playing him because he gives so much every single game. The good news is he only played 45 and is more rested for the upcoming week now than he is if I played him for 90.”

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