Arne Slot had 2 reasons for brutal substitution of Liverpool debutant Isaac Mabaya vs Plymouth
Arne Slot admitted his decision to withdraw Isaac Mabaya versus Plymouth Argyle was influenced by the 20-year-old being on a booking.
Mabaya was handed his first-team debut at Home Park, coming on as an 11th-minute substitute for the injured Joe Gomez, but he was withdrawn less than an hour later, coming off for Darwin Nunez.
The 20-year-old Mabaya was cautioned in the first half for kicking the ball away after the referee's whistle and that ultimately came back to bite him as he was taken off by Slot after 58 minutes.
With Plymouth having taken the lead five minutes earlier through Ryan Hardie's penalty, Slot was keen to make an attacking substitution in a bid to rescue the game and Mabaya was a logical defensive player to replace, with Liverpool's other defenders having not been booked.
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“I think it is a fantastic moment for every player to make your debut and for him as well," Slot said after handing the youngster his Reds bow. “But I felt I had to take him off for two reasons. He was already on a yellow and it was a game with a lot of duels and a lot of intensity and that’s their playing style.
“They bring a lot of long balls in, so if you’re one time wrong then it’s a yellow again, and it was a game that was hard enough with 11, let alone with 10.
“And I felt we needed to make an offensive substitution and the other three were Jarell [Quansah], Wata [Endo] and Kostas [Tsimikas] and that didn’t seem smart to me to take one of these three off.
“I took that decision, and I thought I had to tell him because making your debut and then to be taken off after an hour or something like that is very disappointing for him of course.”
