The scars of a 4-0 defeat at Manchester City still sit fresh, but inside the Liverpool camp the message is clear: doubt the form if you like, don’t doubt Arne Slot.
Florian Wirtz cut through the gloom with a simple argument. Confidence in the Dutchman, he insisted, should be non‑negotiable. Slot is, after all, the man who steered Liverpool to the Premier League title last season, and whose side have still produced “many good” performances in a campaign that now hangs in the balance.
“We would have liked things to be even better, but it is what it is,” Wirtz admitted. “Yet we still have goals. All I can say is that we believe in the manager and want to give our best tomorrow.”
Belief, though, has been tested. Liverpool have won just one of their last five competitive matches. The collapse at the Etihad in the FA Cup quarter-final was more than a bad day; it was a jolt to a squad that had grown used to imposing its will, not absorbing punishment. A 4-0 defeat at this stage of the season leaves a mark, mentally as much as on the fixture list.
Wirtz refused to flinch.
“We believe in ourselves; we have a good squad with great characters and players, and a good manager who is trying to prepare us well for the match,” he said, leaning into the idea that Liverpool’s problems are about execution, not direction.
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Now comes the hardest test of all: Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes, the defending champions, in a tie that has already burned Liverpool once. The setting is familiar, the stakes just as sharp.
What, then, does it take to live with PSG on their own turf? Wirtz did not dress it up.
“90 minutes full of energy and dedication,” he said. “Otherwise we don’t stand a chance.” If Liverpool fall behind, he added, “we must stick together and not lose faith.”
Those words carry extra weight given last season’s scars. Liverpool went out to PSG in the round of 16, a tie that felt like a missed opportunity and a warning. The Reds won 1-0 in France but had already lost 1-0 at Anfield, and Paris finished the job from the spot, cruising through 4-1 in the penalty shoot-out.
That history lingers. So does the sense that this Liverpool side, for all its recent stumbles, still has a say in how this season is written. Slot’s title win last year is the anchor Wirtz keeps returning to. The manager has already proved he can guide them through a long campaign; now he must drag them out of a slump in the harshest of arenas.
The equation in Paris is brutally simple: energy, dedication, and unity for 90 minutes or more. Anything less, and Liverpool will be left to watch PSG march on again, wondering how many more chances this group will get at nights like these.
