Liverpool boss Arne Slot — as he would be expected to in public — has played down talk that exiting the FA Cup could be a positive for his side in the long run with so many fixtures to come before the season ends.

Reds legend Jamie Carragher has long advocated focusing only on the Premier League and the Champions League with Liverpool in a strong position in both of the two major competitions. But after a much-changed team lost to the Championship's bottom side Plymouth Argyle, Slot has insisted that it would have been better to progress.

"There was a wise man who once said to me 'nothing good comes from losing a game' and I completely agree," Slot said during his pre-Everton press conference. "We would definitely have preferred to play six games in 18 days, or seven in 21, or eight games in 24 days, because that is the schedule we are in.

READ MORE: Liverpool legend says Arne Slot just made a 'mistake' as players 'let him down' in calculated gamble

READ MORE: 5 Mohamed Salah replacements Liverpool could sign after Dejan Lovren bombshell

"Now, with us losing the game we have a normal week but that is not what we wanted when we went to Plymouth. The plan was to play with Joe [Gomez], to start Curtis [Jones], but he didn't feel well enough to play. All of a sudden we missed two important players. Darwin [Nunez] became a dad a few days before the game so arrived late. There were some circumstances that were not perfect.

"The idea was to play with an even stronger team but the team we put out should have been strong enough to win the game. The fact we didn't, and didn't against PSV, tells me that these players need these games to get the best out of them. That is why it is disappointing we don't have this extra game for them."

Carragher replied to a social media post that said "probability to win the title has just gone up" with the "100" emoji over the weekend. He has long said Slot should bin off the domestic cups in favor of focusing on what matters most, though he won't mind too much if the Reds end up beating Newcastle United at Wembley next month.

Liverpool.com says: Slot was never going to come out and say that Liverpool losing was a good thing and even if he did, that would only be used to mock him. At the end of the season, though, it could prove to be a positive overall. Come Wednesday night, if the Reds can win at Goodison Park, the Plymouth match will have been swiftly forgotten.