Arne Slot has named a youthful travelling squad to face PSV Eindhoven on the final matchday of the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League on Wednesday, with Liverpool’s progression to the round-of-16 already confirmed after their victory over Lille last week.
Slot, who succeeded Jürgen Klopp as Liverpool boss following the German’s decision to step away from management at the end of last season, admitted: “It took me a while to understand this new format […] but now I can say I’m 100% sure that it doesn’t matter at all if we end up one or two [in the table] because we will play 14th, 15th, 16th [or] 17th and then in the end it’s a draw for which of the teams we’re going to face.”
“So this is a game for us – because we are now first or second, we cannot drop to third – that has no importance of result coming to the league table. But a very wise man once said to me, ‘I have never seen anything good coming from losing a football game,’ so we are not going into the game tomorrow trying to lose the game. We’ll do everything we can to try to win it, of course.”
Playing in the UEFA Champions League, albeit with nothing on the line, will be a rewarding experience for the youthful squad that Slot has named to travel to the Netherlands, but the Dutchman insists that “they don’t need to prove themselves: we know what the quality is for the players that are going to play tomorrow.”
“These players are ready. All the ones that are left behind could have played tomorrow […] but for the long term, if you look back at our season, it has been almost every time after three or four or five weeks we gave them the break during the week when there was a League Cup or an FA Cup [game], if there was moment for them to get some freshness back we have always done that,” he explained.
On a personal level for Slot, Wednesday’s clash gives him the opportunity to return to the Netherlands – and he joked with reporters that it’s “nice to be back and speak a bit of Dutch once in a while as well!”
Asked if he finds similarities between his style of play and that of PSV’s Peter Bosz, Slot confirmed that “what is definitely a similarity is that he wants to have the ball a lot. He doesn’t go to a low block waiting for the other team to make a mistake, he doesn’t let his goalkeeper put the ball on the six-yard line and kick it as far as he can, and he wants to bring the ball out from the back.”
“I think for the PSV fans – and I have noticed this when I was here last season – they are really, really, really happy that Peter is here because he doesn’t only bring results, every game he is involved in I think is a joy to watch. It is always positive, it is always eventful, a lot of things happen.”
“I think the fans here in Eindhoven are very happy – not only because he won the league, but mainly also because of his playing style. I know we are mainly judged about results, but I would hope there comes a time that managers are also judged on their playing style, which is difficult because almost everyone judges us [as] if we win we play well and if we lose we don’t play well,” Slot concluded.