The Reds made the short journey across the M62 to Manchester to face City in a quarter-final of the FA Cup.
What followed was a 4-0 demolition from the Citizens. Liverpool were outclassed by their opposition and in no small thanks to Erling Haaland, who scored a hattrick for the home side.
From a Liverpool perspective there isn’t much to take from this game and is one that Slot and his men will look to sweep under the carpet and move on from.
However, that wouldn’t be great content and I am here to talk about the match, and who are some losers and one winner from Saturday's matchup.
Winner – FA Cup
We will start with the solitary winner from the game today, the competition the game was played in.
The huge away contingent behind one of the goals, the atmosphere, before and during the match (up until the 40th minute) and unfortunately a Haaland hattrick.
The competition has come under some criticism in recent times, with teams not taking it seriously, some bizarre kick off times and especially this season in the UK, the FA Cup has not been on freeview television channels. As a result, some fans have lost interest in the cup.
Many will have tuned in today and been surprisingly excited for a usual Premier League game, because of the increased away allocation creating that extra bite and fire in the game.
Now moving onto the losers…
Loser – Mohamed Salah
Club legend Mo Salah announced that he is leaving the club after nine years on Merseyside. This had many people wanting to see the Egyptian King back to his mercurial best for the final games he will play in the famous red shirt. This was not the best start for his farewell tour.
Salah looked fairly sluggish out there today, similar to the rest of his season, and often being too slow on the ball, like he was with his huge chance with the game poised so delicately at 0-0 in the first 35 minutes.
Mo managed to unsettle Khusanov, who made a mess of a bouncing pass from Mamardashvili, allowing Mo to pick up the ball in the City box with acres of room.
The Egyptian took two very poor touches and ultimately cost himself and LFC a goal because of his lazy play. Khusanov managed to poke his foot onto the ball making Salah drag his shot on the 6-yard-line, out for a throw-in.
To add insult to injury, Mo then had the chance to score a consolation goal for the Reds with a penalty kick, whilst down 4-0.
Throughout his time at Anfield, Salah has had a tumultuous time from 12 yards, but more often than not, he has scored the penalties he takes, although he rarely looks confident or a sure fire bet to score from the spot, that was the same Saturday.
Another tame penalty from the winger let Trafford easily save the penalty and palm it to safety. This just piled on another layer of misery for Liverpool and the travelling support.
Loser – Dominik Szoboszlai
This is not necessarily from the game itself but what happened shortly after the full-time whistle. Szoboszlai went up to LFC fans to show his appreciation, but things quickly turned sour, the Hungarian was seen questioning the remaining fans and their passion/support for the team.
After such a lacklustre performance from the whole team, to do something like this is extremely out of touch and uncharacteristic from Szobo.
As mentioned, the team did not show any fight or much effort after going one and then two goals down, to question the travelling fans, all of whom will have been up early, spent money on tickets, travel and spent extortionate amounts of concessions is so concerning.
This is not a good look for him and from someone who has been so talismanic this year it tarnishes the respect and love the fans have for him, something no one wants to see happen after his outstanding levels this year.
It feels as though he should apologise or at least own up to the poor performance from him and his teammates, as a way to start repairing the relationship between him and the fans.
Loser – Arne Slot
The manager has been and will be under building pressure from now until the final whistle of the second leg against PSG, in the Champions League, Slot’s only hope at salvaging such a pitiful season.
The Dutchman has been criticized heavily over the course of the season and for good reason at times, today’s game being another reason as to why the pressure is building.
Slow, low intensity, easy to play through and a lack of character after going behind, all symptoms that his team have been showing all season, this isn’t a one time blip from his squad.
Add the performances across the season to the heated and public falling out with Mo Salah and some rumours of discontent, you have the perfect storm for a coup de gras, with many cases like it from all over the footballing world.
This is not in support of Slot being sacked or let go at any point, he won the league in his first year as manager and made it look fairly easy.
He should get the chance to show he and his team can bounce back from such a poor season and be able to click fully as he intended when all these signings were made.