Liverpool need a “very special” night to shock PSG, says Slot | OneFootball

Coach Arne Slot admitted that Liverpool will need a “very special” performance to overturn a 2-0 deficit against Paris Saint‑Germain in Tuesday’s second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. Kickoff is at 4 p.m. Brasília time at Anfield.

Slot’s team is on the verge of being eliminated by PSG for the second consecutive season after a disappointing display in Paris last week. Liverpool failed to register a single shot on target at the Parc des Princes, and Slot acknowledged that a significant improvement will be needed to upset Luis Enrique’s side at Anfield.

“We know we need an exceptional performance to reach the next round, but that is completely normal when you are facing the champions of Europe,” Slot said at a pre-match press conference on Monday.

“In the 49 home games we have played under my management, in 36 of them we managed to score two goals or more. Yes, we did not play all 49 of those games against Paris Saint‑Germain, I know that, but the Premier League and Champions League opponents we faced were very strong. So there is belief that we can do something special tomorrow, but we need to be very, very, very special to make it happen,” he continued.

Slot is under growing pressure after Liverpool’s poor Premier League title defense and their FA Cup quarterfinal exit following a 4-0 thrashing by Manchester City.

After three straight defeats against Brighton, City and PSG, Liverpool managed to silence the critics — at least for a few days — with a 2-0 win over Fulham last Saturday. But a lackluster Champions League elimination would pile even more pressure on Slot ahead of next Sunday’s derby against Everton.

“Start aggressively”

Slot knows Liverpool need, at the very least, to deliver a better performance than they did in Paris, where they struggled to keep possession and rarely threatened PSG’s defense.

“We are playing against the champions of Europe, which makes the task more difficult, but not impossible. For now, we will focus only on the job ahead of us, start aggressively and make sure we can get ourselves back into the tie,” said the coach.

“Even Saturday’s game showed how important a goal is… minutes later we scored the second. That is what football is about: one goal can change the momentum of the game, which happened against us in a negative way against Manchester City,” he added.

Although Slot was criticized for Liverpool’s passive display in the first leg, the coach insisted his team can win even with a similar approach at Anfield.

“People will probably find what I am about to say very difficult, but tomorrow’s approach is not that different from the one we had in Paris. Anyone who knows me knows I never tell the team to sit deep for 90 minutes,” he said. “You could see that we pressed high on several occasions. Unfortunately, seven or eight of those moments resulted in one-on-one situations with our goalkeeper,” he added.

“The last time we played them, they had the ball 76% of the time, so that is the first thing we need to change tomorrow: have more possession. If we have more of the ball, it is good to have attacking quality on the pitch — and that is what we will have tomorrow,” Slot concluded.

*With AFP content

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.