Trent Alexander Arnold Questioned Liverpool’s hunger in surprise defeat to Premier League challengers Bournemouth.
Philip Billing’s effort pushed the hosts away from the bottom of the table as the Reds lost 1-0 at Vitality Stadium.
Mohamed Salah missed a penalty in the second half to complete a miserable trip to the south coast for Liverpool, who is back on earth after beating formidable rivals. Manchester United 7-0 just six days ago.
Alexander-Arnold told liverpoolfc.com: “This is the time of the season when everyone knows what they’re fighting for and Bournemouth are in a relegation battle.”
“They’re fighting to survive. But every team in the league is fighting for something, so getting three points means a lot.
“I think looking back now, they probably wanted more from us and that’s unacceptable and we need to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.”
Liverpool are now facing a move to Spain for their second leg. Champions League Last 16 matches with Real Madrid.
They probably wanted this more than we did, and that’s unacceptable and we have to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.
Trent Alexander Arnold
Scoring the first leg 5-2, Alexander-Arnold insists Jurgen Klopp’s team will do anything to close a heavy deficit at the Bernabeu.
“There’s only one more game before the international tournaments and it’s huge for us,” added the English defender.
“It’s a game where we have to go and do something special, so right now all our focus is on that Real Madrid game and that means we can put everything we have into that game knowing we have days to recover.”
“So, it’s about throwing the kitchen sink at him and revealing everything, and I think that’s what we’re going to do – it’s important to do that. Then we’ll prepare for an important encounter.”
The victory for Bournemouth came after a heartbreaking loss to the league leaders. Arsenal a week ago.
They took a 2-0 lead at Emirates Stadium and were defeated by a Reiss Nelson kick deep in extra time.
Billing opened the score with just 9.11 seconds in north London and was happy to score his sixth goal of the season by beating Liverpool.
Speaking to the club’s official website, Billing said: “We all put on a good show.
“Obviously the thoughts from last week, it was a heartbreak but we knew that if we go into this game at home, if we try to do the same, it will pay off eventually, and he did it against the higher team.
“It was difficult to play this game after last week. Of course it hurts your confidence a little bit.
“But we have to keep going, we know we just have to crush them and try to score as many points as we can.
“Probably a lot of people deleted us but if you look at the picture, it’s clearly not what we wanted but I think we played well – we just conceded late goals.
“We weren’t relentless and diligent enough but we were (against Liverpool) and we have to keep it going.”