Arne Slot has been renowned for his honest verdicts on Liverpool’s performances since taking charge of the Reds last summer, and he was typically candid with his assessment of his team’s win away to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night.
The visitors were indebted to Alisson Becker for producing a series of heroic saves before Harvey Elliott was sprung from the bench to score a late winner, and the 1-0 result made a mockery of the shot count, which was 27-2 in PSG’s favour.
The LFC head coach spoke to TNT Sports after the match, and he had no trouble in admitting that his side rode their luck in emerging victorious from the Parc des Princes.
What did Slot say about Liverpool and Alisson?
Slot reflected: “I have experienced once or twice that we had to defend so much, but normally then you come away with a 1-0 loss, or 2-0 or 3-0. That didn’t happen a lot, but to come away with a win over here was probably a bit more than we deserved.”
The Liverpool boss also reserved special praise for Alisson, citing the 32-year-old as the world’s best goalkeeper as he proclaimed: “I don’t think I’ve worked with a goalkeeper that has played at this level, which is normal because he’s the best in the world.
“I’ve had some very good players as a manager but I’ve never had the best goalkeeper in the world, and that I think he is. He showed that today.”
Slot knows that Liverpool rode their luck in Paris
If the Reds are to go on and win the Champions League this season, Alisson’s superhuman performance last night will be pinpointed as a seminal moment in the journey towards eventual glory in Munich on 31 May.
Not content with sparing us from group stage elimination with a heroic last-gasp stop against Napoli en route to our sixth European Cup triumph in 2018/19, it isn’t hyperbole to state that his nine saves at the Parc des Princes kept his team in the tie before Elliott’s 87th-minute sucker punch.
Leaving the goalkeeper and the shot count aside for a moment, Liverpool also had a rub of the green with two key first-half incidents – the Khvicha Kvaratskhelia strike which was ruled out for a marginal offside, and Ibrahima Konate escaping a potential red card for a foul on Bradley Barcola when the PSG man was bearing down on goal.
Slot is no fool; he knows that his team were outplayed for almost the entire match and simply punished the home side for being so profligate in the final third, although much of that was down to the peerless Alisson.
The 46-year-old will demand vastly improved performances in our upcoming matches against Southampton, PSG and Newcastle, so long as they’re accompanied by the same outcome as last night!
