Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has said his team need to win the Champions League to be considered the best in Europe and insists they must be prepared to “suffer” against Paris Saint-Germain.
Slot’s side are currently 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League and also finished top of the Champions League table, with PSG boss Luis Enrique having described them as the best team on the continent.
Liverpool play the French champions in the first leg of their round of 16 tie at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday before hosting the second leg at Anfield next week.
“It’s a nice compliment to get, but the best team in Europe has to win the Champions League,” Slot said in his pre-match news conference on Tuesday. “We are far away from that, starting with a very difficult game tomorrow and then all the difficult ones that are coming up because we have seen the draw.
“I think the best team in Europe at the moment is still Real Madrid as they won this competition last season. Someone else can say something different but, for us, we first have to win it before we can say it.”
Reflecting on the quality of PSG, Slot added: “We could only have [faced] two [teams]: Benfica or PSG. Although I like Benfica a lot, everyone who has watched football in the last few months could have told you that maybe we would have preferred to play Benfica instead of PSG.
“But this is also a great fixture to play. It’s a great stadium to play in. If you play at Liverpool, you want to play in big games and this is definitely a big game for us. We have to accept the draw and both teams are facing a very strong opponent.
“They are quite intense in terms of pressing. I think if there is one thing people will tell you about us it’s that we are quite intense as well. Maybe not always going man v man all over the pitch like PSG, but we like to press aggressively. It’s so difficult to judge before the game.
“Tomorrow, we have to see if they are on top of us and if they are we have to suffer like we did against [Manchester] City, or hopefully we can hold the ball very well and we can play a similar style to how we did in all other games apart from the City one and that’s us dominating the ball.”
Liverpool must wait to see if forward Cody Gakpo is fit to feature on Wednesday night after he picked up a knock in training earlier this week. The Dutchman returned to action as a substitute in the win over City last month after struggling with an ankle injury.
“He was close to being ready to play again but unfortunately yesterday he had to block a shot, and he felt a bit of pain again,” Slot said. “We brought him with us to judge if he can be part of the squad, but it will be a close call.”
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