ReactionArne Slot press conference: Liverpool 0-2 Paris Saint-Germain
The Reds lost 2-0 at Anfield in the second leg of their quarter-final tie with the current holders.
A pair of finishes from Ousmane Dembele in the second half stretched PSG's aggregate lead to 4-0.
See a summary of what Slot told reporters post-match below.
On the game...
I think we made a lot of progression compared to last week. I have to give a lot of credit to the players, how hard they worked. I have to give a lot of credit to our fans, how they helped us tonight to execute our game plan. And that means if we have a high press, it's so helpful if there are fans behind you to keep on pushing you. That's what they did. Unfortunately it's one of the many examples of this season where we weren't able to score from the many chances we had. Again, we were so underperforming in terms of xG and that is just an ongoing thing with us throughout the whole season. And add to that, it seems to be a bad injury [to Hugo Ekitike] – we don't know [for] sure yet. Add to that another intervention of the VAR, which went not in our favour and that's also not for the first time this season.
Then of course we are very disappointed because I think there were parts in the second half where you could just feel, 'If we can score now this is going to become a special night.' But the future looks very bright for this team, for this club because we've shown that we can compete with the champions of Europe in our stadium, to be the dominant team – not many teams can be dominant against Paris Saint-Germain and generate so many chances as we did. But yeah, chances is one thing, scoring is a second.
On the decision to overturn the penalty awarded for Liverpool in the second half...
I think probably last week we had too much luck and we ran out of luck today. Last week, there were also two incidents where we might have been a bit lucky, although the first one that was overturned by the VAR there was clearly no contact and the ball was played. The second one could have been a penalty but if you don't give it as a referee then I don't think your VAR should overturn it. Today, in my opinion, I've conceded a few of these penalties this season and I could name them all for you – starting with Brentford away and Leeds away, where yes, there is contact but you would never give a penalty for this. But if a penalty has been given, usually VAR tells you, 'I see contact' and then the decision should be the on-field decision. I wasn't surprised that this went against us, but it's not the story of the game.
On his substitution of Joe Gomez after bringing him on at half-time and the latest on Ekitike's injury...
He [Gomez] wasn't injured but I wanted to make a different substitution and then he said to me, 'I'm not convinced if I can keep sprinting. I feel a little bit. So, I think it's better to go off and not to take the risk.' So yeah, then I think that would've been my fourth substitution, so then to keep someone on that might get injured is never a smart thing. I had to change the substitution. And Hugo, I think we all saw in the video and the clips that it doesn't look good. [It was] 88 minutes until tonight we could play with Florian [Wirtz], Alex [Isak] and Hugo. We added 27, 28 to that tonight and I would be surprised if we can add a few more minutes to that this season. But the good thing is Alex is back.
On the decision to start Isak...
I said before the game, if you go to extra-time and he plays in the second half and plays 45 minutes there is only two minutes in between before extra-time comes up for half an hour and I don't think that was realistic. But to play him 45 and let's see at half-time how he feels to add five to 10 minutes to that, that was a possibility for today. But because we already had to make the first substitution in the first half, I didn't want to make the second substitution five or 10 minutes after half-time – that's why I took him off at half-time.
He was twice close to a goal and that's why you play a striker of his level – there was one header from a set-piece and there was one great run in behind [Willian] Pacho, which he was really close to scoring but eventually was offside. It is good to see and to have him back. I think he was ready and if I thought he wasn't ready then I wouldn't have played him. I think if you compare us today to last week, I think it is fair to say he was completely ready to play, otherwise you can't play the first half as we did, although the second half was even better.
On whether he has any explanation for missing chances...
It's difficult but one of the reasons to play Alex and Hugo is because they have proven to be goalscorers. I don't know what it is but it is part of our season this season. But of course part of this is that Alex hasn't been available. Because if there's one proven goalscorer in the Premier League as a No.9 I have in my team, it's of course Alex, who scored so many times for Newcastle. But I think if you look at the finish of Dembele, I think Rio [Ngumoha] had the same shot two minutes before – a very good shot, by the way, a very good save of the goalkeeper. But the Ballon d'Or winner scored two minutes later a great goal and sometimes you have to give credit to this particular player, Ousmane Dembele, who finished that chance off really well.