Slot seeks response as Liverpool clashes with PSG in Champions League quarter-finals
By Joel Masibo, April 8, 2026Liverpool manager Arne Slot has urged his players to respond positively to recent setbacks ahead of a UEFA Champions League quarter-final against PSG at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.
The Reds will be seeking to bounce back positively after suffering a humiliating 4-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-final. The particular game, which is a repeat of last season’s Round of 16 first leg that the Reds won 1-0, thanks in no small part to an incredible performance from Alisson Becker, comes at the moment when Liverpool are registering mixed results across all competitions.
Manchester City’s defeat
On the team’s effort throughout the defeat at Manchester City on Saturday, Slot said;
”Sometimes in a game of football, you want to do things in a certain way but you’re not able to for various reasons, but one of them can definitely be conceding goals when you think you’re playing well and in the game. Usually in football, moments that hurt you most are just before half-time and just after. So, you go in at half-time, for large spells of the game feeling you went toe-to-toe with City but then you are 2-0 down,”Slot said.
”Then immediately after half-time you concede the 3-0, then five minutes in between, and we had two big chances from Mo [Salah], by the way, where it was too open, players were struggling. The good thing for us was that after the 4-0, City seemed to be OK with the 4-0 and we had the ball and constant ball possession but were not able to create that much anymore. I didn’t see players giving up in that part of the game, but I think it is also good from captain that he has a strong and firm reaction after a game like that and hopefully it’s not only immediately after the game, but we can , as a team, show a strong and firm reaction tomorrow evening,” he added.
Facing PSG
On whether winning this tie would give Liverpool a comparable boost to the one PSG got by beating the Reds en route to lifting the trophy last season, Arne Slot reacted;
”Well, I don’t think so far ahead. especially if you face Paris Saint-Germain. So, like I said, the champions of Europe, fully deserved, [and] this season kept the team together. As it proves out in football, usually the longer teams play together, the better they become, if that was even possible because they were so impressive last season. But I have watched quite a lot of games of them and they are just as impressive, maybe even more impressive, this season. There’s even more rotations and they are still a very good team,” he said.
”But as it is in football, details can decide a lot because who takes penalties best? That is what made the difference last season for Paris Saint-Germain to beat us and then go all the way to win the final, and usually a team needs to win a penalty shootout [to win a trophy]. It’s the same in the World Cup or in the Champions League and as much as I wanted to believe that there is no luck involved in the penalty shootouts, because you can train it, you can prepare it, you can do a lot of things for it, sometimes maybe this has to do also a little bit of luck with the goalkeeper because [Gianluigi] Donnarumma was great,” he said.