Arne Slot admits his emotions got the better of him after being sent off at the end of an explosive Merseyside derby.
The Liverpool boss and assistant Spike Hulshoff were shown red cards for confronting referee Michael Oliver following the dramatic 2-2 draw at Goodison Park. Irate Slot gave the whistler an exaggerated handshake in the wake of James Tarkowski’s stoppage-time equaliser and is also alleged to have had two separate rants at Oliver during the game and only one was picked up by the TV cameras.
The Dutchman looks set to be in the dugout for Sunday’s home clash with Wolves after bungling Premier League chiefs deleted a statement posted on their official website yesterday, which stated Slot was dismissed “for using offensive, insulting or abusive language” – adding “he is handed a two-match ban as a result”.
Slot was reluctant to go into detail about the potential ban but admitted he could have handled things better. Speaking at today’s press conference, he said: “There’s an ongoing process now, and I think I have to respect that, so I can’t go into the details. I think what happened is the extra time went from five minutes to eight, which happens a lot. The emotions got the better of me, and if I look back at it, I would love to do it differently.”
Meanwhile, Slot admits a draw was probably the fair result in the final-ever derby at Goodison Park as he highlighted Everton’s resurgence under David Moyes. He said: “We would have loved to go nine points up, it would have been better than seven. But we take a lot of positives from the game.
“We didn’t play our best game in terms of ball possession but I have to give credit to David Moyes, he’s done a tremendous job and made it really hard for us, but the players stood up. We were mentally much stronger than last season, we went 1-0 down and were leading 2-1.”