Arne Slot's Southampton fury revealed by key Liverpool duo
- Liverpool beat Southampton 3-1 on Saturday after second-half comeback
- Reds trailed at the break after Will Smallbone's unlikely opener
- Slot fumed at his squad during interval
By Tom Gott
Trent Alexander-Arnold confessed he has never seen manager Arne Slot angrier than he was at half-time of Liverpool's 3-1 win over Southampton.
The Reds trailed at half-time after a bitterly disappointing first half, but a double from Mohamed Salah and a strike from Darwin Nunez ultimately turned things around after the break and maintained Liverpool's lead at the top of the Premier League standings.
Salah revealed after the game how Slot's furious half-time team talk inspired Liverpool's turnaround, and Alexander-Arnold has joined the Egyptian in opening up on just how angry the Dutchman was.
"Probably the most [angry] we have seen him so far, I guess it's a good thing he's not been too animated so far, but I think rightfully so," Alexander-Arnold told LFCTV.
"It wasn't good enough, we deserved to be down, but we came out second half with a point to prove and did that really early on. As a team and individuals, you'd like to be very good every single game but it's not possible.
"You are going to have days like this where you don't play well, you're not proud of the performance. It's a day you look back on it and think yeah we got the three points, that's the most important thing."
Van Dijk: Slot had every right to be angry
Like Alexander-Arnold, fellow defender Virgil van Dijk also understood why Slot was so angry with his players.
Asked whether it was the angriest he had ever seen the manager, Van Dijk added: "Yes, but if you look at the first half, he had every right to be angry.
"And I think from his point of view as well, it was even more frustrating to see. But we did what we all wanted in the second half and what he wanted as well and now we move on. He wasn't happy and he had every right to [not be].
"No-one was really happy with the first half performance, but we are all human beings and we had no intention to play the first half like we did.
"Unfortunately we did, but we turned it around. That's part of football."
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