Arne Slot Reacts to Hugo Ekitike’s “Needless” Second Yellow

In the end, a fully changed Liverpool made up of players who mostly hadn’t played together or seen the pitch much so far this season side fought through the rust and earned a deserved 2-1 victory over Southampton on Tuesday evening in the League Cup. For most, though, the goals and performances aren’t the big talking point following the match.

Instead, the talking point is striker Hugo Ekitike, who managed to score the winning goal after Federico Chiesa put it on a plate for him—and then was sent off by way of a second yellow for removing his shirt in celebration. Given how soft his first yellow had been, it’s an incident that certainly raised eyebrows.

Fortunately for the Reds, with Alexander Isak on hand and working towards full match fitness, manager Arne Slot should have his striker situation already well sorted for Saturday’s game against Crystal Palace that Ekitike is set to miss. Still, both of the player’s yellows can at best be described as avoidable, and he will have to learn from that and do better moving forward.

“That was needless, yes,” Slot said following the match. “The first [yellow] was already needless and to a certain extent stupid, because you have to control your emotions. I know how hard it is, but it’s always the best to control your emotions, and if you cannot control your emotions do it in a way that doesn’t lead to a yellow card.

“I told him as well, if you score in a Champions League final in the 87th minute after outplaying three players and hitting it in the top corner, I can maybe understand that you’re like, ‘This is all about me!’ But I am old fashioned, I’m 47 and old maybe. If I would have scored a goal like this, I would have turned around to Federico Chiesa and said, ‘This goal is all about you.’ So, yeah, needless.”

With the win sorted and Isak available for Saturday we can all laugh and move on, but the focus on Ekitike’s needless second (and first!) yellow and the one-game suspension that resulted has rather got in the way of the outstanding game that Chiesa had, setting up both Liverpool goals and working hard throughout.

“I always want to see players that try and work hard,” Slot added when asked about Chiesa’s evening. “So for me it is not a coincidence that Federico [intercepted] the ball and assisted on the first because he was the one, in my opinion, that was most involved in the game, tried the most, worked the hardest.

“And then it wasn’t a coincidence again that he was the man that made a deep run [to set up the second]. That’s the way to get yourself either back in the team or get as much playing minutes as you want. That’s why I was happy with a few individual performances—but I was far from happy with a few other individual performances.”

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