Slot on PSG, motivation and playing to winpublished at 18:39
18:39
Nicola Pearson
BBC Sport journalist
Arne Slot has been speaking to the media before Tuesday’s Champions League last-16 second leg against Paris St-Germain (kick-off 20:00 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
Slot confirmed Cody Gakpo “will be fit to be in the squad” having trained for the first time on Monday.
On comments made by PSG boss Luis Enrique about his Ligue 1 side having nothing to lose: “They have a game of football to lose. We do as well. I do think they have been at this stage of tournament for many years. Last season they reached the semi-finals - we were not even in this competition last year! The season before, this was the round we were knocked out. These teams [like PSG] are normally going quite far into Europe.”
On what Liverpool need to improve after their first-leg performance: “Some said we played poorly – I don’t agree. I think they [PSG] played tremendously well. I don’t think we have played a team this season that has combined that much quality with that much intensity, but I do think we can do better. I’m not saying we played poorly but we are a better team than we were last week. We need to prove that tomorrow with the help of our fans.”
Slot does not believe that suggestions PSG were surprised by Liverpool’s level last week will give his players extra motivation: “I don’t think anyone needs more motivation. Not our players or theirs. If you play in knockout stages at Anfield with one of best teams in Europe - them and us - no-one needs any kind of motivation.”
Asked if this kind of week with big games is what made him want to be Reds boss, he said: “There are many reasons why I wanted to be Liverpool manager. First of all, because of the history; second, because of the quality of players and third, because you expect us to be in these kind of moments. You want to compete for every trophy and at this club you expect to do so.”
The head coach said “you don’t dream at all” in a week like this and his only focus is to “prepare the team in the best way”.
He added: “When you have games like last week you wonder: ‘Do I even go to sleep or do I have to watch more?’”
On having a lead to defend: “Is it different? No. We play every game to try and win. We tried to do that last week. It wasn’t our intention to be low all the time. We tried to play a different game to over there, but sometimes teams, with the help of fans, that [performance] happens. Our intention is always the same - we are not going to go for a draw. We want to win every single game.”
It’s not like we have the choice. We can’t just say “let’s put this to bed early so we can give everyone a rest”. This game will be incredibly intense from start to finish and we will need to be at our absolute best to progress.
Yeah, PSG certainly won’t let us sit on our arses like Southampton, even if Southampton’s game has a % of risk. It’s simple, even if our plan is again to be a bit more pragmatic than them (I think Virgil said the plan was to drop our lines a bit in Paris, I presume mid-block and not as deep as we were pinned back), we’ll have to raise our performance in almost all aspects of the game.
Fuck all discussion on a Liverpool forum?
I suppose 28 posts on the Mancs new shit hole stadium is more important …
Anyway, lest we forget.
Need to be at this from the get go. I reckon Cody won’t start. Maybe the same starting eleven as we saw vs City? In some ways the chaos of Darwin would annoy them a bit. Not sure if Arne would start him though.
This is just another massive match, Anfield will be buzzing.
A much more important place than a monument to global capitalism in Manc land. Built on saving sandwiches from poorer paid workers.
Anfield is built on history and passion.
Yeah, it feels like one of these massive, massive games… I wonder how the build-up is in Liverpool? Fans on the streets already? The atmosphere could be terrific tonight!
I respectfully disagree.
The in match thread will run into hundreds of posts, many fair critique, many slating the obvious players unnecessarily. With a smattering of comedy and other weak attempts at comedy.
Discussion on the match beforehand sets the mood. Gets us in the area of thinking. Stops us discussing Man Utd, Donalt Trump, X, korma and who we might buy to make next season better than the dream we are currently experiencing.
I remember pre match threads being a hive of discussion and nerves and superstition.
I think that this comes from us being so good this season. There is an unanimous agreement that we are freaking good and can beat anyone placed in front of us. That isn’t very good for creating long pre-match threads.
Part of the problem is that we only played them six days ago, so not much has changed. Also, it was such a tense watch that quite a few of us haven’t got our nerves back.
I’m sure it will liven up when everyone has had their bowl of korma.
There’s no real sense of jeopardy at the moment, because we’ve managed to get through what could have been a real disaster – a transition of so many major components of the backroom, to somehow be miles ahead in the league. It’s almost as though the Champions League is just a bonus rather than a necessity.
In past seasons, we were either firmly the underdogs (2017-18, 2018-19, 2023-24), had the mental burden of a long wait (2019-20), had everything go wrong (2020-21, 2022-23), were firmly in a close fight (2021-22), so there was a lot more pressure.
Now? The league is essentially won, we have a narrow lead against PSG, and results-wise, we have been nigh-on untouchable in the Champions League this season. As long as it’s not Nuno’s Forest we’re facing, where’s the jeopardy?
There’s also no news coming through, so what’s there to discuss? We can laugh at United, worry about geopolitical events, but in terms of this game, there’s literally no reason for there to be much activity in this thread until around 1845Z.
And we should be thankful for that, and not addicted to that drama.
I think this pre-match thread is a bit of an oddity, in so much that last weeks post-match thread was discussing, and included lots for tonight’s game plan…
For an important CL game though… previous threads have been busier than this one… Seems the bigger the gap between the return game, the more the tension and buzz increases towards kick-off… Unless of course, we are all learning a thing from AS and his cool dude demeanour :0)
