Arne Slot laughed off a question about the futures of his soon-to-be out-of-contract trio following Liverpool’s defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
The Reds’ hopes of a treble this season, and claiming a seventh European crown, are over after they suffered heartbreak in a penalty shootout at Anfield. Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones both saw their efforts from the spot saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma as the French champion won the shootout 4-1 to secure a spot in the quarter-finals.
Ousmane Dembele scored the only goal during normal time to level the tie after Harvey Elliott’s winner in Paris last week. Liverpool will be left to rue a number of missed opportunities, with Mohamed Salah in particular having two great chances before Dembele had even opened the scoring.
Salah was seen leaving the pitch in tears after the shootout, having been the only Liverpool player to have scored from the spot. His reaction will inevitably raise more questions over his future, with the Egyptian’s contract expiring in the summer.
He finds himself in the same boat as Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was forced off through injury during the second half. The question of the trio’s futures was immediately put to Slot as he spoke to Amazon Prime Video after the defeat to PSG, although the Liverpool boss wasn’t in the mood to discuss the matter.
“That is the last thing I think about!” Slot said. “It is creative to come up with the contract situation.
“It is hard, last season we weren’t in the Champions League. Liverpool showed ourselves in this competition as we want to.”
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Reflecting on his side’s defeat, Slot added: “It was the best game of football where I was ever involved in. Incredible performance, especially compared to last week.
“First 20/25 minutes, we were all over them, created chance after chance and all of a sudden we were 1-0 down. Probably it was almost the opposite, maybe we ran out of luck because the margins were so small tonight.
“It feels unfair to go out at this round already, you’re at the top of the table then you face a team like PSG, but that’s also the nice part about football. Everybody around the world enjoyed watching this game and the margins are small, and if you want to win it you have to have some luck, we had it last week, I don’t think we had it today.
“Now it’s clear what we have to do for the rest of the season, one league cup final and nine Premier League games to go.”
