SLOT PRE SAFC

Arne Slot has discussed Liverpool's disappointing season, and admitted that it would be unacceptable for the Reds not to qualify for the Champions League, whilst also giving praise to Regis Le Bris for how Sunderland have surprised everyone. Slot also spoke about their tricky right-back problem with Frimpong and Bradley both injured and Dominik Szoboszlai picking up a red card against Man City. Joe Gomez is set to return to training today after recovering from injury, but the Liverpool boss was reluctant to confirm whether he'll feature on Wednesday night or not.

HIGH STAKES

"Yes, if we don't have Champions League football, it is definitely not an acceptable season. The season I arrived here, we could only sign Federico Chiesa that summer and that was after a Europa League season. The way this club is run, it does have a huge impact."

FINE MARGINS

"[We have to be] close to perfection because of the points we are behind. We also know it is different when you are four points behind a team that are 18th or 19th in the league because they usually don't pick up as many points as the number three, four or five picks up, so to close the gap to numbers three, four and five, that means you have to win a lot and that is not what we have done this season a lot, so that is why that has to be better and that is why we have to be close to perfection. Margins are indeed very small because seven minutes before the end we were five points behind City and five minutes later we were 11 points behind."

SUNDERLAND DOING WELL

"I think there are more teams having a very good season. Arsenal are definitely one of them, Villa are impressive, Brentford are very impressive. But Sunderland are also impressive, it's definitely an accomplishment. It's very good that if you are promoted and come into the Premier League that you do so well. That is a big compliment to their players and to their manager."

OUR HOME RECORD

"They have a good record at home, they have had a very good season, Sunderland. They have already played against City and Arsenal at home, so that tells you how good of a season they are having and how strong and good they are at home."

SZOBOSZLAI RED

“My feelings haven't changed. The moment I saw he got the red card I was disappointed, not to have him against Sunderland. But on the other hand, I think the referee did what he had to do, and that's not what we like if we love football, but it's the rulebook, and referees are there to follow the rulebook."

WHO WILL PLAY RIGHT BACK?

“Joe has not trained with us yet. I'm expecting him to train with us today for the first time, so that's part of your question. And indeed, if Joe is not ready to start, then we are missing four players that have played on that position. But Curtis [Jones] and Wataru [Endo] also played in that position this year, so we've had six different full-backs, right full-backs, this season.”

AFFECTS THE TEAM SHAPE

"I think I've had to change in many positions as a result of it, because if Dominik plays as a right-back, he can't play in the midfield, so you have to change the midfield. And that has gone throughout the whole team quite a lot. Difficult to measure, we were talking about bad luck, I've spoken about set-pieces, we're talking about injuries. I think this all goes into it, why results have been how they've been. And I think one other main thing has been that it has taken us a while before everyone was ready to play every three days at Premier League and Champions League level. But for me, we've reached that point now, because if I compare our game against [Manchester] City three or four months ago, where we wanted to press them in the first half, aggressive as well now, we hardly touched the ball, so the game two days ago was so much different, and I think that shows how many steps we've made after all the things we went through."

NEED TO BRING CONFIDENCE

“So, yeah, there are more reasons to come up why the season has gone like this, but the main thing is to look forward, and from the last five or six games we've played, I get a lot of confidence from that, but we need to bring that confidence into better results.”