A SLOT OF BOTHER (AND THEN SOME)
While the good news for Liverpool is that they get to play Paris Saint-Germain again next week, the bad news is that they get to play Paris Saint-Germain again next week. Having spent much of his time in England bemoaning the cowardice of opposition teams who sit deep against his side, there was a certain irony in seeing Liverpool’s head coach embrace the negative tactics he has so often pooh-poohed during his side’s 2-0 evisceration at the hands of the reigning Bigger Cup holders in Paris. On a night when Liverpool had just 28% possession, registered zero shots on target and hoped for the best at a couple of Joe Gomez long throws, Arne Slot was at least treated to a masterclass on how best to overcome the kind of “anti-football” he has long lamented.
After two consecutive thrashings that suggested any residual heavy-metal football from the Jürgen Klopp era has now made way for its elevator-music equivalent, Slot offered up no excuses and admitted he had flown in the face of his own purist philosophy in an attempt to keep the tie alive for the second leg. While a faint pulse remains, its presence is down to a combination of the heroics of the game’s second-best Georgian, some generous refereeing and some really quite atrocious PSG finishing rather than anything achieved by Liverpool’s snake-belly low block. “They ripped us apart at times,” wailed Slot in a series of sombre post-match debriefs. “Every tactic has been tried over here, but the result is always the same, with Paris Saint-Germain blowing the opponent away. They have so many weapons and it makes them so difficult to play against. We were in survival mode, but they kept us alive by missing their chances.”
Of course, it is not unprecedented for Liverpool to pull off near miraculous Bigger Cup comebacks at Anfield against teams featuring forwards in full-on barn door-banjo mode. But Wednesday night’s events suggest that despite the failure of Ballon d’Or-winner Ousmane Dembélé and assorted teammates to finish off their visitors, the current incarnation of PSG ought to have very little to worry about next Tuesday. In the aftermath of this humbling, PSG’s metronomic midfield maestro Vitinha patiently waited pitchside for Liverpool substitute Trey Nyoni to finish his post-match warm-down so the duo could exchange shirts. It was the nearest any player in red had got to the diminutive Portuguese all night.
Despite being outclassed, Liverpool remain in this tie and for the return leg on Merseyside, Virgil van Dijk has called upon fans to do their best to make it one of those cliched Anfield nights. “I’ve been through many special evenings at Anfield,” he reminisced. “I’m very lucky and privileged. And our fans, that’s the backbone of the club and hopefully they can be there for us again.” While it is likely to take more than a stirring rendition of a Carousel closing number sung by already disgruntled fans to get their team back in this tie, the evidence thus far suggests Liverpool’s players will need all the help they can get to turn things around. Whatever the outcome next week – and Football Daily can see only one – it seems little more than a matter of time before the club hierarchy pull the plug on this malfunctioning Slot machine.
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Join Taha Hashim from 8pm BST for hot Bigger Vase quarter-final, first-leg action from Bologna 1-1 Aston Villa, while Will Unwin will be on deck at the same time for Porto 2-1 Nottingham Forest.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s the club that invented football and I don’t think that story has been told adequately or correctly. I didn’t even know the club was a thing until I was about 18 years old and I’m a football fan. It’s been a historic problem for the city of Sheffield that we don’t shout about ourselves or tell our own fables in the way the Mancs do or scousers do” – Reverend and the Makers frontman Jon McClure gets his chat on about becoming the new chair of Sheffield FC.
This is a great, great PSG side. But take it first hand from me, the Championship Manager 97-98 squad of Patrice Loco, Rai et Florian Maurice was (and remains) a joy to coach – simply a winning machine in attacking 4-4-2. Fitting to see a team with such rich history continuing to dominate” – Alexander McMillan.
Enjoyed your celebration of Michael Olise’s ‘unstoppable one-man insurgency’ against Real Madrid (yesterday’s Football Daily) – he really is quite good. But why does he have to be ‘the former Crystal Palace winger’ rather than, say, ‘the Reading academy discovery’. Olise’s estimable talents may go on to achieve many things (including quite plausibly Bigger Cup and the Geopolitics World Cup this year), but the most consequential is surely saving one of England’s oldest clubs through the sell-on clause to Bayern Munich” – David Gilbert.
I wouldn’t call Nike’s problems with the shoulder seams on the GWC shirts uncharacteristic (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). When they took over MLB uniforms in 2024, the new designs’ pants became transparent after a couple innings’ sweat and shredded on the first slide, which, to be fair, is only something baseball players have done for 150 years” – Josh Crockett.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … David Gilbert. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.
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