Arne Slot admitted Liverpool are in survival mode after their defeat by Paris St-Germain was branded “toothless”.
Désiré Doué and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored the goals at Parc des Princes in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final but it could have been worse for Slot, who focused solely on defending for the last 25 minutes in Paris.
Slot defended his decision to play five defenders and said his team was just aiming to survive in this tie and at the current stage of their campaign, with his players battling for a top-five finish in the Premier League. Slot also axed Mohamed Salah from his starting line-up.
“We were in survival mode for large parts of the game. But maybe also in the period of the season where we were in survival mode,” he said. “PSG was the better team. But we didn’t give up and that’s why we have a chance now still in this tie.
“In the last part of the game it was more about surviving us than having a chance. I think this was a 20-25 minutes where we only defending and Mo has so many qualities, but to be 20-25 minutes defending in his own box, I think it is better for him to save his energy for games coming up.
“Because they kept us alive by not scoring a few open chances. And now we can bring the tie back to Anfield. Not unfortunately, but in between there’s still a very important game to be played for us against Fulham. Just in terms of the system, you’ve not used it before.”
Slot switched up his tactics to play Joe Gomez as a third centre-back with wing-backs but could not prevent PSG from creating numerous chances. They also had two penalty shouts against Ibrahima Konaté turned down.
“It’s completely fine with me if everyone wants to focus on the tactics,” Slot added. “But for me that’s absolutely not the story of the game today. Every tactic has been tried over here. But the result is always the same.”
Telegraph Sport columnist Jamie Carragher, working for CBS as a pundit, added: “That was like watching a team from a lower division. The gulf in class was very worrying from a Liverpool point of view.”
Liverpool will now have to summon the spirit of 2005 to stay in the Champions League but the hero of that year, Steven Gerrard, was worried about the performance in Paris.
Gerrard told TNT: “PSG were more ruthless, certainly in the second half they had big chances… to go and kill the tie off. Liverpool getting out of here at 2-0 is okay, it’s not fantastic but if any place can make a tie of this next week, it’s Anfield.
“It’s going to be difficult to turn this around, against this team. Marquinhos [PSG’s captain] has had the easiest game of the season, he’s hardly done anything today. It’s going to take a huge performance for Liverpool to turn this around next week.
“It’s going to be a real big ask because PSG are so good. It was total domination tonight, Liverpool’s tactics and game plan worked for large periods of the game but they didn’t have anything up top. They were quite toothless and didn’t create anything.
“Over the course of 90 minutes Liverpool haven’t offered enough but what they’ve done is given themselves a small opportunity next week at Anfield.”
On Slot dropping Salah, Gerrard added: “[I’d be] Frustrated. I think he would be sitting there thinking, ‘I would back myself to influence this game and improve proceedings,’ certainly from a going-forward point of view. I think he will be a little bit sad and frustrated, but credit to him, he’s just stayed behind there and done extra running. He’s got his mind on Fulham.”