Slot shocked as ‘unbelievable’ stoppage time allows Salah to snatch late winner | OneFootball

Liverpool boss Arne Slot was left in shock that Mohammed Salah had time to score a last-minute penalty against Burnley at Turf Moor.

Liverpool struggled to break down Burnley throughout the 90 minutes but four minutes into injury time Hannibal Mejbri was punished for a handball in the box. Salah stepped up to take the penalty, and made no mistakes as he smashed the ball into the top left corner.

The referee had added on five extra minutes to a match that had not had many stoppages other than Lesley Ugochukwu’s second yellow card.

“I settled really badly because after 90 minutes when I saw how much added time there was, I was shocked.” Slot said.

“I was still shocked when we got the penalty because five minutes of added time for me was unbelievable. Shocked and then happy Mo scored the penalty.”

Liverpool had 27 shots during the game but only managed four shots on target as they struggled to create chances throughout the match, but Slot was pleased with his side’s defending.

“It wasn’t a game where we created a lot of chances,” the Dutch manager added. “It is hard against a team who plays in their box. We kept playing, we kept moving the ball around. They got more and more tired which is normal when you have to defend for 80% of time and then we got as many attackers on as possible.

“It was a difficult game but all of them are in the Premier League. A clean sheet and from open play we hardly conceded a chance. That’s a good thing.

“It is normal and with a lot of new players, we will get better and better but in the meantime we have 12 points.”

Liverpool signed Alexander Isak for a British-record fee but he was not named in the matchday squad for their fixture against Burnley. Slot explained why he did not feature today.

He said: “You make a choice for a good reason, for a good argument. That choice was because he missed out for four months on team training.

“He’s in his second or third week of pre-season. We have given him a proper week and then we think maybe he will get more than 10 or 15 minutes in our Wednesday game and that’s the way to build him up. He needs proper playing time but we also need to build him up so he has a good base.”