The 2-1 defeat to Newcastle occurred shortly after Liverpool's exit from the Champions League at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain, leaving the Premier League as their sole remaining chance for silverware.

Slot had been eyeing a haul of trophies after leading his team to the top of their Champions League group and smoothly reaching the Carabao Cup final.

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Keown's old team Arsenal is still Liverpool's main competitor in the league race?

Mikel Arteta's squad was five points ahead with nine games remaining last season but ended up trailing five points behind the champions Manchester City.

"If this was Arsenal, losing two major games, you'd say they bottled it," Keown remarked on talkSPORT regarding Liverpool's back-to-back cup losses.

"Like I said from the start, it took us seven, eight [or] nine months to lose twice in a row and that happens against two teams; one of them is fighting for Champions League, Newcastle is a very good team [and] we knew this already at St

But I want to make clear one more time that the week started off really well by us beating Southampton.

"That's why we extended our lead to 12 points [in the Premier League] with nine games to go
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