Arne Slot is taking confidence from Liverpool’s latest Champions League romp after his team set up a mouth-watering rematch with Paris Saint-Germain.
The Reds booked their place in the quarter-finals when they demolished Galatasaray 4-0 in their round of 16 second leg at Anfield on Wednesday night.
Dominik Szoboszlai, Hugo Ekitike, Ryan Gravenberch and Mohamed Salah all netted as Slot’s side overturned their 1-0 defeat in Istanbul last week.
They will now face PSG in the last eight next month having been eliminated last season in the first knockout round on penalties by the French outfit, who went on to win the tournament.
And Slot said: “If you go to latter stages of Champions League then you know on thing for sure – you’re going to face Paris Saint-Germain because they are an incredible team.
“We have experienced that last season when we faced them away from home, very, very, very difficult game, here at Anfield we played a fantastic game. I’ve said a lot of times how great a match that was, the best game I’ve managed in my career.
“Not the result, but it was the way football should be played, both teams just playing football, just wanting to entertain the fans.
“We were the only team that brought them to extra-time, we were the only team that brought them to penalties.
“That team has shown this season they haven’t dropped a level, and we showed tonight we can still perform at the level we were performing for large parts of last season.
“It gives me and us a lot of confidence that we have this performance. But it’s not first one this season, we’ve had more of them especially in Europe, and we have to try to find the consistency.
“Although I can already disappoint people, this performance is hardly possible to copy one more time because 5.02 xG on a Champions League night while conceding 0.18, that’s not going to be easy to copy that one more time.”
Liverpool were backed by a raucous Anfield crowd who gave Galatasaray, for whom travelling supporters were banned, a hostile reception throughout.
And Slot believes the atmosphere generated surpassed either of the two at Rams Park in Turkey earlier this season.
“I’m very grateful for the fans,” he said. “We lost twice against Galatasaray (this season) because they are a good team and also because their fans are so, so, so helpful for them in their stadium.
“I think it’s fair to say now Anfield has created an even bigger atmosphere. The atmosphere tonight was unbelievable as it has been so many times at Anfield on European nights. This was all we could ask for from the players but also from the fans.
“From the first time Galatasaray tried to kill the momentum, our fans raised their voices even more and I think combination was very important and that’s maybe why I was a bit more energetic (on the touchline) than I usually am because we have to fight this together.”
Slot added: “From start to finish we played the game I was hoping for, the players were hoping for and fans were hoping for. Not only we played from start to finish the perfect game, the fans played the perfect game as well.
“Great dynamic between fans and players and almost the perfect game from us. Definitely from our fans.”
