Liverpool’s Arne Slot says Premier League referees are testing his patience

Arne Slot has said he must reflect on the touchline behaviour that has attracted three yellow cards this season, but he admitted Premier League referees are breaking his limits.

The Liverpool head coach will serve a one-match suspension in the Carabao Cup quarter-final at Southampton having collected his third booking, against Fulham on Saturday. Slot was also shown a yellow card against Chelsea and Arsenal, the latter after a mix-up with the fourth official, who thought he was swearing at him and not Ibrahima Konaté.

The 46-year-old Slot usually cuts a calm figure in the technical area but he admits his first season with English referees has been a testing experience.

“You always reflect but I think in general I am calm,” said Slot, who also has Andy Robertson suspended for the tie on Wednesday. “I don’t know if it is smart to say this but there is also a limit for me, let’s put it that way, and then I can get emotional. Unfortunately that limit is only reached by refereeing decisions or the decisions my players make. They make more good decisions than the referees do in my opinion, for my team.

“In this game [Fulham] there were a lot of controversial decisions being made and then if you are down to 10 men that works out even harder. The Chelsea game and this game were emotional and maybe I should have stayed just underneath [the line] instead of going above.”

Slot erupted on Saturday when the referee, Tony Harrington, penalised Curtis Jones for a foul on Alex Iwobi. He was also booked by John Brooks for protesting against the decision to overturn a penalty awarded in Liverpool’s win against Chelsea.

“The mistake I have made two times already here, and one or two times in Holland, is thinking that creating an atmosphere that the whole world is against you can lead to some positive decisions at the end of the game,” Slot said. “But in the Chelsea game and the Fulham game it stayed the same for the whole 90 minutes. It wasn’t like after I tried to influence things a bit the referee all of a sudden gave us one or two free-kicks. No, he kept the whole game the same. I know it doesn’t work, but sometimes you think: ‘Can I influence that a bit?’ But it didn’t help at all.”

Robertson’s natural replacement at left-back, Kostas Tsimikas, returned to training on Tuesday after an ankle injury. Should the Greece international miss out against managerless Southampton, Slot could be forced to call on academy graduates such as the 21-year-old James Norris and 18-year-old Amara Nallo. Diogo Jota will not be fit to start having felt a reaction on his goalscoring comeback against Fulham, but Federico Chiesa could make an appearance after a long-term absence.

“We have only four defenders available and probably the ones that have started a lot will not play 90 minutes and maybe not even at all,” Slot said.

“It’s going to be either academy players that are going to get playing time or players that nobody would expect to see in the last line that are going to play in the last line tomorrow.”