(Video) Oh dear! Horrendous Liverpool mix-up puts seal on pre-season defeat to AC Milan | OneFootball

Liverpool were beaten 4-2 by AC Milan in the first match of their pre-season tour to the Far East on Saturday, with the result and aspects of the performance giving Arne Slot plenty to ponder.

The teams were level at the interval, with Dominik Szoboszlai netting a superb equaliser, but the Reds conceded two quickfire goals early in the second half to leave them chasing the game.

Cody Gakpo halved the deficit in stoppage time with a neat header, but the two-goal disparity was quickly restored in rather bizarre fashion.

Liverpool concede nightmare fourth goal in defeat to Milan

With Liverpool chasing a last-gasp equaliser, Giorgi Mamardashvili was nearly at the centre circle when he passed sideways to Kostas Tsimikas, who overhit his backpass under pressure from advancing Milan players.

It left our Georgian goalkeeper scrambling to get back and he was outpaced by the ever-alert Noah Okafor, who had the easiest job of rolling the ball into the net to put the seal on an impressive victory for AC Milan.

Image via @LFCExtensive2 on X

Don’t do that in a competitive game, Liverpool!

If the Reds are to be culpable of such a calamitous and comical mix-up, let’s just be glad that it happened in pre-season and not in a match of major consequence during the campaign!

Slot’s side are still feeling their way back into the rhythm of things this month while also trying to cope with the extreme distress of losing Diogo Jota in tragic circumstances at the start of July, so we’re not going to hammer any of the players over what happened in Hong Kong today.

Mamardashvili and Tsimikas are still getting used to playing with one another, hence the breakdown in communication and faulty execution which gifted Okafor a second goal of the night.

Even though it happened in a friendly, the Liverpool head coach still won’t be happy with the manner of how it came about, and the same can be said for the other AC Milan goals as they punished us on the counterattack three times.

This time of the year is about getting back on the pitch and identifying what needs to be worked upon for future games. In that regard, Slot will have plenty to mull over ahead of the next fixture against Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan on Wednesday.

You can view the fourth AC Milan goal below, taken from SSC News’ match coverage and shared via @LFCExtensive2 on X: