Arne Slot bemoans injury woes and fixture schedule as Liverpool lose at Brighton

Liverpool boss Arne Slot pointed to key injury absentees and a swift turnaround from Champions League commitments to explain a damaging 2-1 Premier League defeat at Brighton.

The Reds’ hopes of returning to European football’s premier club competition next season suffered another blow after a Danny Welbeck double inflicted their 10th loss of a dismal title defence.

Slot was without goalkeeper Alisson Becker, forward Mohamed Salah and club-record signing Alexander Isak at the Amex Stadium, while top scorer Hugo Ekitike limped off inside eight minutes.

Liverpool arrived in Sussex for a lunchtime kick-off having reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League on Wednesday evening by completing a 4-1 aggregate win over Galatasaray at Anfield.

Defeat left the reigning champions with only one point from the last nine available after they conceded late goals in a 2-1 loss at bottom club Wolves and last weekend’s 1-1 draw at home to relegation-threatened Tottenham.

“Brighton away, that’s a difficult game for any team, especially if you miss out on a few very influential players,” said Slot.

“Of course now, looking at the league table, this loss hurts a lot and it should hurt us a lot.

“But the main problem we are in this position (is) because we dropped points at Wolves in the last minute with a deflected shot (and then) a week ago (against Tottenham) – not a week ago, because we had to play on Sunday, not on Saturday, and then on Wednesday and Saturday, not as all the other Champions League teams.

“The goal last week in the 90th minute is a bigger problem than losing away at Brighton.”

Following Welbeck’s 14th-minute opener, Liverpool levelled through Milos Kerkez before conceding the decisive goal 11 minutes into the second