Why the sequel to Arne Slot’s favourite tie could spell doom for Liverpool

For a year and more, Arne Slot has often harked back to what he frequently describes as the best tie has been involved in. “My football is Paris Saint-Germain v Liverpool , Liverpool v Paris Saint-Germain,” he said in January. Now he gets to relive and revisit it .

If sequels can be worse than the original, this threatens to be more painful; for Slot, anyway. Liverpool exited the Champions League to PSG last year, but on penalties. Now that might seem a respectable, acceptable outcome.

The European champions beat Chelsea 8-2 on aggregate in the last round; Slot, who regularly notes that opponents outperform their xG against Liverpool, may note they did so with an expected goals of just 2. 23. They posted a tally almost twice as high over 210 minutes against Liverpool last season and scored just once.

But the aesthete and the attacker in Slot savoured the quality in the double header against Luis Enrique ’s team last season. “The reason I come back to that game a lot, especially at Anfield, is because it was all about football and this season I have seen so many times tactics you cannot do anything about; I am talking about timewasting,” said Slot. PSG’s tactics – “press, press, press”, in his words – are very different.