Arne Slot: Disallowed Virgil van Dijk goal 'obvious and clear wrong decision' in Liverpool's defeat against Manchester City

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Liverpool fell to their fifth defeat of the Premier League season as the champions' title defence continues to crumble, but Arne Slot feels that, although Manchester City were the better team in Sunday's clash, Liverpool were hard done by when Virgil van Dijk had a goal ruled out. Pep Guardiola's side ran out 3-0 winners to close the gap at the top of the league to four points.

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Arne Slot said it was "obvious and clear" that the decision to rule out Virgil van Dijk's goal in Liverpool's defeat against Manchester City on Sunday was "wrong".

The Dutch defender thought he had pulled Liverpool level following Erling Haaland's opener when he guided a header beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma, only for an assistant referee to raise his flag for offside.

Andy Robertson was controversially judged to have impeded Donnarumma's vision from an offside position, which led to the goal being ruled out.

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Slot was unhappy with the decision at the time, and after the game, he expressed his thoughts in his post-match interview, citing an example of a similar goal being allowed to stand last season.

"It is difficult to give my view," Slot told Sky Sports. "It is obvious and clear that the wrong decision has been made, at least in my opinion.

"He didn't interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do. Immediately after the game, someone showed me the goal that the same referee allowed - City against Wolves last season.

"So it took the linesman 13 seconds to raise his flag to say it was offside. So there was clearly communication, but as I said, that could have influenced the game in a positive way for us."

Liverpool 'shouldn't talk about No. 1 position'

Sunday's loss is Liverpool's fifth Premier League defeat of the season, which have all come in their last six games.

They have lost to Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Manchester United, Brentford and City in the first four months of their title defence, and sit in eighth place with 18 points after 11 games, eight adrift of leaders Arsenal.

On having a lot of problems to fix, Slot said: "I don't know if that is the situation. It has been a very good start to the week, with a very bad end to the week.

"Today, I don't think, apart from that decision, that it was ever going to be our game. In general, they were the better team - we need to improve - but I didn't need this game to know this.

"I saw a team trying to come back into the game, but it wasn't enough today and that is clear."

Liverpool found themselves in a similar position as Mikel Arteta's Gunners last campaign, with a sizeable gap at the top of the league.

Although Slot has played down his side's defence of the title by saying they should not think about the top position yet, the Dutch coach knows the title race is far from finished.

"Last season, when we were eight points clear, it didn't feel like it was done already," he said.

"We shouldn't talk about the No. 1 position [in the league], we should focus on our performance that needs to be better."

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