Online Reporter
While Liverpool narrowly missed clinching top spot with a game to spare in the Champions League despite a 2-1 defeat of French side Lille on Tuesday, manager Arne Slot said finishing in the top eight and avoiding two playoff games was the most important thing.
Liverpool’s win guaranteed the Premier League leaders a top-eight finish and a berth in the last 16, thus avoiding the two-legged knockout phase facing the teams who finish ninth to 24th.
Barcelona, who staged a dramatic 5-4 comeback win over Benfica with a stoppage-time goal by Raphinha, are snapping at Liverpool’s heels, three points behind with one round of the league phase to play.
“If in tennis you are the No. 1 seed it is better to face the No. 24 than the 12, but it is a ranking based on years,” Slot said.
“Now we are in a new format when some teams are high in the league table because they had a lucky draw and some teams are low because they have a very difficult draw. It is far off to say it is an advantage to be one or two. You might be lucky, you might be very unlucky.
“For me, it doesn’t tell me anything. The most important thing is we managed to skip a round.”
Mohamed Salah scored his 50th European goal for Liverpool and substitute Harvey Elliott sealed the victory in the 67th minute after Jonathan David had levelled for Lille.
Liverpool set a club record for their longest spell without conceding a goal in European competition, with 599 minutes elapsing between Christian Pulisic’s goal for AC Milan in the opening game and David’s strike on Tuesday.
In between, Liverpool kept clean sheets against Bologna, RB Leipzig, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid and Girona, and topped the 572 minutes without conceding in the 2005-06 season under Rafael Benitez.
“Very pleased,” Slot said. “Where I put everything down to, first of all quality of the players and second these players have a quality work rate. If you combine those two things it is very difficult to score against the team. The nice thing for me is we keep clean sheets not by defending a lot, we keep clean sheets by attacking a lot.”
Slot said patience was required against a Lille side that maintained their composure even after being reduced to 10 men in the second half, showing why they had been unbeaten in 21 successive games across all competitions.
“They don’t have the best players in the world (but) it is how disciplined they are, how hard they want to work,” Slot said. “We didn’t force the pass, we kept the ball for as long as we could. The only thing I wasn’t happy about was it was one chance for the other team.”
Lille manager Bruno Genesio said that while he was frustrated by the loss, “it’s a feeling that is mixed with pride as well. I think the display we put on, particularly the second half when we were one man down, I was pleased about.” − Reuters
