(Video) Even Arne Slot was caught cold by Liverpool’s quickfire start to the second half | OneFootball

Arne Slot will have seen quite a lot in his first 15 months as Liverpool head coach, but he didn’t see his team scoring just 20 seconds after half-time against Newcastle tonight.

As in, he literally didn’t see it!

With the Reds 1-0 to the good as the second half commenced thanks to Ryan Gravenberch, Hugo Ekitike charged at the Magpies’ defence straight from the kick-off and played the ball to Cody Gakpo, whose initial shot was blocked down before he laid the ball off to the French striker.

The 23-year-old drilled a first-time effort beyond Nick Pope to double the visitors’ lead at St James’ Park and score his third goal in his first three competitive games for Liverpool since joining from Eintracht Frankfurt last month.

(Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

Slot missed Ekitike’s goal straight after half-time

The Sky Sports cameras duly showed that Slot was still emerging from the tunnel and hadn’t even reached the dugout by the time Ekitike had scored, with the celebrations of his backroom staff informing him that the Reds had gone 2-0 in front, news that the 46-year-old greeted with a smile.

Buoyed by leading at the interval and also having a one-man advantage after Anthony Gordon’s deserved red card on the stroke of half-time, the Premier League champions came out of the dressing room determined to hammer home their superiority on both counts.

Liverpool appeared to have firm control of the game after Ekitike’s goal, but just 11 minutes later, Bruno Guimaraes halved the deficit to set up a tense final half-hour at St James’ Park.

It’s a venue where the Reds have struck quite a few decisive late goals in the past, such as Divock Origi’s winner in May 2019 and the last-gasp double from Darwin Nunez two years ago to turn a seemingly impending defeat into a dramatic victory.

On this occasion the Merseysiders set about scoring at the start of the second half instead, with Ekitike catching even Slot off guard!

You can view Slot emerging from the tunnel after Ekitike scored below, via @SkySportsPL on X: