ARNE SLOT claims his Liverpool team are too “honest” for their own good — and should embrace football’s dark arts.
The Anfield chief believes his champions are the fairest team in the Premier League and he sometimes “blames” them for refusing to go down when fouled.
Slot says referees tell him players will not get free-kicks unless they fall over, as he referenced two incidents from Sunday’s Community Shield defeat by Crystal Palace on penalties.
One was key as Cody Gakpo was shoved in the back in the build-up to Ismaila Sarr’s equaliser for 2-2.
Dutchman Slot, whose side host Bournemouth in the Premier League opener on Friday night, said: “If there is one team who, in my opinion, is by far the most honest team, it’s us.
“I sometimes blame them that they never try to make a foul look a little bit more, like Cody against Palace, he got a push in his back but he was far too clean.
“Sometimes, like against Palace, if I talk to the officials about Florian Wirtz, they held him clearly but he was so fair that he didn’t fall over.
“The referee said ‘Yeah, if you didn’t fall, I’m not going to give you a free-kick’ which is a little bit weird.
“A fraction later a Palace player fell down in a moment which wasn’t even a foul and the referee said ‘Oh, you fell down, so it is probably a foul’.
“We had much more ball possession than Palace but we made 13 fouls and they made five fouls and that tells you something about who we are.
“We are a very fair team, I think that’s clear but that’s also a reason why we won the league, so why change if things went well?”
Slot made the incorrect claim Ryan Gravenberch’s suspension for tonight’s season-opener was due to a yellow card for diving.
While the midfielder was booked for going down in the final match of last term, he was then handed a straight red for a tactical foul.
But Slot said: “If there is one team in the league that never dives and never time-delays and those kinds of things — then it’s us.
“And we have a suspension now for a player diving, that’s what he got his first yellow card for.”
Having chosen to bring up the issue, Slot then suggested he did not want his Reds to change their honest ways.
The Kop boss said: “For me the best games were the games against Paris Saint-Germain — that was so high intensity, both teams were there to play and not to pretend a foul was more, or to try to time-delay.
“I’m also proud of the fact of who we are and we won the league last season because of the team we were, so let us just stay who we are.”
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