Liverpool manager Arne Slot has warned his beleaguered team that if they play as they did in their FA Cup drubbing by Manchester City on Saturday, Paris Saint-Germain will put another four goals past them in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.
Slot, who is coming under increasing pressure from disaffected Liverpool supporters, said he welcomed comments from skipper Virgil van Dijk in the aftermath of the defeat when he suggested that some of his team-mates had ‘given up’ in the second half after a disastrous 20-minute spell either side of half time when they conceded four times. The game ended 4-0.
And he insisted that if Liverpool drew on their rich history of resilience and defiance in the Champions League and played as they had done in the first 35 minutes against City at the Etihad, then they might yet be able to upset PSG and progress to the semi-finals.
‘I can tell you,’ Slot said at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday evening, ‘if we have the 20 minutes we had at City, if we have them tomorrow evening here, we will again concede four goals.
‘Because these PSG players over here know how to act if we are having 20 minutes of that. So it’s a challenge for us to be, from the first to the last second, at the level we were in the first 35 minutes against City.
‘If not, it’s going to be a very hard night again, like it was last year, where we completely deserved to lose 4-0 over here, or maybe more. But that’s the beauty of football. In the 85th minute we scored a goal where we were almost like, “wow, this was robbery”.’
Arne Slot is under huge pressure ahead of Liverpool’s clash with PSG on Wednesday
Liverpool, aided by a superlative performance from goalkeeper Alisson, snatched that 1-0 victory in the French capital at the round of 16 stage last season but then lost by the same scoreline at Anfield and were eliminated after a penalty shoot-out.
Slot acknowledged that PSG, who went on to win the competition for the first time, are an even better team now than they were then whereas Liverpool are in the middle of a transition symbolised by the arrivals of Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak and the impending departure of Mo Salah.
Isak has spent much of his debut season on Merseyside injured but he has travelled to Paris and Slot said that even though he would not start, it was possible he would play a part in the first leg from the bench.
‘What Virgil said, I think it makes complete sense,’ Slot said, ‘and it’s completely normal, the feeling Virgil shared after the game. That is the feeling every player had, and not only every player, every staff member and every fan or supporter of Liverpool as well.Everyone involved in Liverpool Football Club was disappointed after that result.
‘Now we have to show that mentality again, of just keep going and picking yourself up after disappointment, because this club has shown also many times that we can do very special things in difficult circumstances.’
