PARIS – Under-fire Liverpool coach Arne Slot said his team will bounce back from their latest setback in a difficult season as they prepare for a rematch with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday. Liverpool welcome back striker Alexander Isak to the squad following injury for the quarter-final first leg in Paris.
The trip to France comes off the back of a 4-0 hammering by Manchester City in the FA Cup at the weekend — a game in which captain Virgil van Dijk suggested that the team had given up. “I didn’t see players giving up. But I think it’s also good for our captain that he has a strong and firm reaction after a game like that,” Slot told reporters at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday.
Season of Struggle
Slot’s team have won just one of their last five matches and are currently fifth in the Premier League, far from certain of returning to Europe’s elite club competition again next season. That puts extra pressure on him and his side for a tie against the reigning European champions, which is a repeat of the last-16 clash a year ago which Liverpool lost on penalties at Anfield despite winning 1-0 in the first leg in France.
“We can never take a quarter-final of the Champions League for granted, let alone if you face the champions of Europe that fully deserved to win the Champions League last season, and again this season are doing very, very well,” Slot said. “I just look at the challenge in itself, and it’s a nice one because in football it’s sometimes also nice to get a second chance, and in life in general it’s nice to get a second chance.”
Drawing on Positive Moments
Slot believes that his team can draw on the way they played for the first half-hour at the Etihad Stadium against City before they fell apart. He also knows that the visitors probably will not get away with a repeat of what happened against PSG in Paris last season, when they survived a pounding before somehow snatching the win with a late goal.
“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, he said. “If not, it’s going to be a really 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 I was almost like, wow, this was robbery.”
Isak’s Return
Swedish striker Alexander Isak is in the Liverpool squad for Wednesday’s game and could make his first appearance since suffering a leg fracture against Tottenham Hotspur in December. “He finished close to a week of team training sessions now, so he can play a part, otherwise I wouldn’t take him,” said Slot. “Since he is with us now we do think we can get a performance out of him now, but not to start so quickly.”
Slot’s Praise for PSG
Slot was full of praise for Luis Enrique’s PSG, saying it was “almost impossible to be better than the team they were last season.” “In the 100m sprint, if you run 9.8 (seconds) you cannot go to 8.6, you can maybe go to 9.75, and these are the margins we are talking about with Paris Saint-Germain. We are at a different stage now because we made a big transition in the summer, but we are trying to go to that 9.8 again and maybe even 9.75.”
Player Confidence in Slot
Earlier, Liverpool’s German star Florian Wirtz, one of several marquee signings made for this season, insisted that he and his teammates still believe in Slot despite the team’s struggles. “Of course we are believing in the manager. The team should believe in the manager because they won the league last season,” he said. “We have had a lot of good games this season. We wanted it to be better than what it is now, but we still have things to play for.”
Analysis: A Defining Moment for Slot’s Liverpool
Liverpool’s season hangs in the balance. A 4-0 defeat to Manchester City in the FA Cup was humiliating, and captain Virgil van Dijk’s post-match comments suggested a team at risk of fracturing. But Slot’s response — calm, measured, and focused on the opportunity for a “second chance” — will be tested against the reigning European champions.
PSG are a formidable opponent. They dismantled Liverpool in Paris last season, and only a late, improbable goal gave the Reds hope at Anfield. Slot’s admission that Liverpool “completely deserved to lose 4-0” is honest, but honesty alone will not win matches.
The return of Alexander Isak offers a glimmer of hope. The Swedish striker was in excellent form before his injury in December, and his presence in the squad — even if not fit to start — could provide a psychological boost.
Florian Wirtz’s public declaration of belief in Slot is significant. If the players have lost faith in the manager, they are not showing it. But belief must translate into performance.
The Champions League may be Liverpool’s only realistic path back to Europe’s elite competition next season. Winning the tournament would secure qualification regardless of their Premier League finish. But that is a tall order for a team in fifth place, struggling for form, facing the champions of Europe.
Slot talks of “9.8 seconds” and “9.75” — of marginal gains. Against PSG, Liverpool will need every gain they can find. And perhaps a little of that robbery that Slot described last year.
