{"id":2679,"date":"2025-08-16T14:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T14:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/2679\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T14:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T14:42:10","slug":"arne-slot-i-would-have-loved-to-bring-diogo-jota-on-liverpool-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/2679\/","title":{"rendered":"Arne Slot: ‘I would have loved to bring Diogo Jota on’ – Liverpool FC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arne Slot<\/a> has heartbreakingly declared that he would \u201chave loved\u201d to bring Diogo Jota<\/a> on to score the match-winner against Bournemouth<\/a>, as he was the \u201cfirst one\u201d he would turn to.<\/b><\/p>\n

Jota was the man for the big moment, a trusted poacher who could turn the game in Liverpool\u2019s favour with one touch off his boot, and Slot felt his absence on Friday.<\/p>\n

Anfield paid an emotional tribute to Jota and his brother Andre Silva with a pre-match mosaic and banners throughout the Kop, declaring their family would always have a home with them.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Salah<\/a>\u2018s outward show of emotion underlined how raw the grief remains, less than two months after Jota\u2019s tragic death, and Slot heartbreakingly spoke of feeling the No. 20\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

With the game tied at 2-2 with 14 minutes of normal time remaining, it was a moment made for Jota to make an impact off the bench, and that is who Slot would have turned to.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally, when it was 2-2, I think these two (Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville) know which player I was looking at at that moment,\u201d Slot said during his interview with Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

\u2022 READ:<\/strong> \u201cI wanted to be in the crowd!\u201d \u2013 Hugo Ekitike wowed by Anfield atmosphere<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI would have loved to bring Diogo Jota<\/a> on, but now I couldn\u2019t for terrible reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the fans and the players that were still there did what he did so many times for us in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slot would later reveal to NBC Sports<\/a> that he told the players just that after the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve spoken for five or six minutes about football, what we should talk about is how impressive and powerful this tribute was,\u201d Slot said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been lucky to be here for a year and I\u2019ve heard You\u2019ll Never Walk Alone many times, but the way it was sung today was so, so powerful.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then how during the game and at the end, our fans, they\u2019ve been so incredible with the tribute they paid and the help they gave the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to the players afterwards, normally 20 minutes before the end when it was 2-2, the first one I would look at was Diogo. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now with the help of the fans and our players, we were able to turn the game around as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said, the whole story should be how impressive the tribute was. That can only happen at Anfield, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot has heartbreakingly declared that he would \u201chave loved\u201d to bring Diogo Jota on to score the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,560,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-2679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-liverpool-fc","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}