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Arne Slot said he would have loved to have been able to call on Diogo Jota to help rescue Liverpool against Bournemouth on Friday night.
The Reds were never losing against their South Coast opponent, but they did let a two-goal lead slip in the second half, and required an 88th-minute strike from Federico Chiesa to regain the lead and ultimately go on to win 4-2 and claim all three points.
Liverpool entered the new league season without several forwards who were in the title-winning squad, with Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz both having found new clubs over the summer, and Jota having tragically passed away in a car accident last month.
Liverpool may have signed Hugo Ekitike but the France international is the only new forward that the Reds have signed, and the lack of numbers in that area of the pitch meant the options off the bench were limited.
Chiesa and youngster Rio Ngumoha were the only genuine forwards available for Slot to call upon, and the Dutchman decided to introduce the former following Antoine Semenyo's 76th-minute equalizer.
Addressing the substitution that ended up winning the game, Slot recalled how frequently he would turn to Jota when Liverpool needed a goal last season.
"Normally at 2-2 everyone knows which player I look to at that moment in time," Slot said about Jota, who scored vital goals off the bench against Fulham and Nottingham Forest last term.
"I would have loved to bring in Diogo Jota, but I could not for terrible reasons. But tonight the fans and the players did what he did for us many times in the past."
Match-winner Chiesa also credited Jota in a post-game interview, saying: "[The goal] was a great moment for me, but my thoughts go to Diogo.
"I think for what we have seen it was his day. The feeling that the fans gave me, chanting his song all the way through the match. It was very emotional, very emotional for me. I have to say that after the goal my thoughts went to his family, his brother Andre. That's the only thing I could say.
"At the end of the day we have to focus on the football. We wanted to win today. It was a difficult match, we went 2-0 up and then they came back, but we showed why we are champions.
"Of course Diogo would have helped us a lot but unfortunately he was somewhere else and he helped us in another way."
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