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Arne Slot appeared to make a subtle dig at Newcastle's playing style following Monday’s pulsating 3-2 win at St. James Park.
Liverpool, with a man advantage, allowed a two-goal lead to slip on an emotional night in the north-east, before Rio Ngumoha fired in an injury-time winner to become the youngest scorer in the club’s history. The hostile playing environment was made even more challenging by the hosts' tactics on Monday, especially after Anthony Gordon’s ill-advised tackle on Virgil van Dijk, which saw the ex-Everton man shown a straight red card.
Newcastle repeatedly looked to slow down the game and took an age after the ball went out of play.
That was underlined by a post-match Opta stat that the ball was in play for just 40.8 percent of the match, the lowest in a Premier League game since 2010.
There were clearly some frustrations from the Liverpool head coach after full-time.
“I'm not too sure if I saw a football match today. It was set-piece after set-piece, long throw,” the Dutchman told Sky Sports.
“It didn't have a lot to do with tactics, what I said before the game, but I liked a lot how we stood strong.
“Very difficult first half hour, 45 minutes, but we didn't collapse at all, we stood strong.
“Going down to 10 men, you would expect that that is a big plus for us, but when a goalkeeper takes every free-kick, then there's not so much help if you are one player up, and that's why it was so difficult for us to bring the 2-0 over the line.”
Asked in his post-match press conference whether he was disappointed Liverpool didn’t manage to dominate the game when 2-0 ahead and having an extra player, he replied: "No, not at all, because that is what their playing style brought.
"You cannot control a game of football if every single ball is thrown into your 18-yard box, every throw-in is a long throw-in, every free-kick they get is a long ball.
"And they can do both – that's why this is such a good team.
"They can play out from the back if they want to, they can be intense in their pressing, they have so many quality players. But they also have the quality to play a game like this with so many big players."
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