‘That is true’ – Alan Shearer agrees with one thing Arne Slot said after Liverpool draw v Fulham

Alan Shearer appeared to agree with one comment made by Arne Slot after Liverpool’s 2-2 draw at Fulham on Sunday.

There was stoppage time drama aplenty as Craven Cottage as Cody Gakpo’s goal seemed to have won it for the Reds, only for Harrison Reed to pull out a long-distance piledriver in the 97th minute (much to Steve Nicol’s annoyance) and ensure that the spoils would be shared.

It’s the fourth Premier League game this season in which the reigning champions have conceded a costly goal in added time, having shipped last-gasp winners to Crystal Palace and Chelsea in the autumn and thrown away two points late on away to Leeds a month ago.

What did Slot say after Liverpool draw?

Speaking after the draw against Fulham, Slot lamented (via ESPN UK): “So many points have disappeared for us. Of course it is frustrating. We rely throughout the whole season on luck and bad luck, and that is something we have to improve, that a shot in the last minute doesn’t lead to us losing points, and that is what we are trying. We haven’t done that yet.”

Gary Lineker referenced those comments in the latest episode of The Rest Is Football and observed: “I think what he’s saying there is that basically they’re not playing well enough to guarantee victories like they were last season.”

Shearer replied: “That is true. That’s the top and bottom of it. They’re nowhere near as good as they were last year and they’re being punished.”

Slot knows Liverpool’s late lapses have been a worrying trend

Any team can be lucky or unlucky in a game of football, especially when hit by a last-gasp sucker punch to leave a final score which isn’t indicative of how the match as a whole transpired.

However, for Liverpool to have dropped points in four different fixtures due to the concession of stoppage-time goals is indicative of a deeper problem, whether that’s down to complacency, a lapse in concentration, a lack of belief or whatever it might be.

The irony is that, at the start of the season, the Reds had a happy knack of winning games late on – think back to the opening-night victory over Bournemouth, Rio Ngumoha’s heroics at Newcastle, Mo Salah’s penalty at Burnley and Virgil van Dijk’s header against Atletico Madrid.

Without the costly late lapses in the Premier League, we’d currently be nine points clear of Manchester United rather than three, and we’d actually be 12 clear of Chelsea if it weren’t for Estevao’s decisive strike at Stamford Bridge in October.

Ultimately, every team will finish in the table where they deserve to end up. If Liverpool narrowly miss out on Champions League qualification, it’d be nobody’s fault but their own for carelessly frittering away points in stoppage time with such alarming regularity.

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