FORMER Liverpool star Jermaine Pennant was left begging for help as he tried to understand a hat-trick of tactical decisions made by Arne Slot.
Liverpool were held in a frustrating 1-1 draw against relegation-battlers Tottenham at Anfield.
Manager Slot named a rotated XI without Mohamed Salah in it, and played Rio Ngumoha from the start for his full Premier League debut.
Dominik Szoboszlai opened the scoring with a trademark free-kick, though Jamie Carragher berated Guglielmo Vicario on Sky Sports co-comms for his poor attempt at a save.
But Spurs eventually hit a late equaliser through former Everton man Richarlison to take a deserved point back to London.
With Aston Villa and Chelsea both losing this weekend, the Reds actually gained ground on the top four Champions League spots, although it was still very much two points lost rather than a point gained.
Ex-Premier League and England Under-21 star Pennant echoed that sentiment with a scorching statement on social media.
The 43-year-old was desperate to try and understand some of Slot’s decisions and took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to vent his frustrations.
He said: “Someone please help me, help me understand.
“Help me understand why 1 ) [Hugo] Ekitike doesn’t start, 2 [he] takes Rio off leave, [Cody] Gakpo on, and 3) [He] takes [Jeremie] Frimpong off and then leaves Szoboszlai at RB…”
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Slot had brought Hugo Ekitike on for Ngumoha in the 65th minute in a triple sub that also saw Florian Wirtz subbed off for Curtis Jones and Jeremie Frimpong taken off for Salah.
Trey Nyoni, 18, made only his fourth appearance of the season off the bench in place of Cody Gakpo, only for Spurs to score six minutes later.
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Federico Chiesa came on for Alexis Mac Allister in injury time, but it was too little too late.
Pennant issued a response to one fan who tried to answer his query by saying Mac Allister was the correct sub earlier due to how easily the Argentine was being run past.
He said: “But if we [can see it], and I’m guessing most of the fans would agree, how can the man in charge not see this.
“There has to be s*** going on behind the scenes that we have no clue about, cos this is blasphemy.”
Pennant played 81 times for Liverpool in his career, including 55 Prem games in which he scored three goals.
Throughout his career, the winger also played for the likes of Arsenal, Birmingham and Stoke.
Pennant never played senior football for the Three Lions, and holds the bizarre record of being one of only two Englishmen to appear in the Champions League final and not for the national team, the other being Jamie Gittens.
