Arne Slot believes teenage defender Amara Nallo will learn from the “cruel” red card that ruined his senior debut for Liverpool. Nallo was dismissed just four minutes after coming on in the 83rd minute of the 3-2 Champions League defeat at PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday evening.

The 18-year-old defender was given a straight red card after he misjudged a challenge on home forward Johan Bakayoko which was deemed to be denying a goalscoring opportunity.

Nallo, who had previously been on the bench four times for the first team, has replaced Michael Owen in becoming the youngest player to ever be dismissed for Liverpool.

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And Slot said: “Yes, it’s cruel but he’d never played first-team football yet and then to make a debut at Champions League level is probably the hardest way to make a debut. I think he misinterpreted the situation and that’s immediately a problem at this level or in the Premier League.

“It’s a big moment for him to learn from and it’s cruel. You think, ‘I’m going to make my debut in the Champions League’, and then a few minutes later you go off with a red card. That’s always difficult.

“A career isn’t always positive, there are also negatives and he has to fight very hard to make sure he plays a second Champions League game. It is not going to be easy but hopefully he will.”

Liverpool, who had already qualified for the round of 16, were without 12 first-team regulars in Holland with Slot fielding a second-string side largely consisting of fringe players and youngsters.

Federico Chiesa, making only his second start for the Reds since arriving from Juventus last summer, played a full 90 minutes for the first time for the club, and won the penalty from which Cody Gakpo scored and saw his shot parried for Harvey Elliott to net Liverpool’s second.

And asked if the performance represented a step forward for Chiesa, Slot said: “Yes. He got a knock with the penalty and that took him a few moments before he got going again. It has maybe been seven, eight or nine months since he last played a full 90 minutes, and it was the same for Jayden Danns and James McConnell.

“We had a lot of players who were not used to playing quite a lot of minutes in the last few months, so it was important for them to make those 90 minutes and be able to complete, although Jayden had to come off near the end. Federico was still sprinting at the end.”