Arne Slot has revealed that he was actually pleased that Barcelona scored a 96th minute winner against Benfica to prevent Liverpool from securing top spot in the Champions League league phase with a game to spare. The Reds won 2-1 against Lille in their penultimate match, meaning they would have finished first if the Catalans had dropped points.

Hansi Flick’s side had trailed 3-1 and 4-2 in Lisbon, but three goals in the final 12 minutes - including a stoppage-time winner from Raphinha - clinched an unlikely comeback for Barcelona.

Consequently, Liverpool are assured of at least a top two finish after booking their place in the round of 16, but need a point away at PSV Eindhoven to guarantee they’ll finish first next week.

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While Slot admitted it would have been to the Reds’ advantage if Barcelona had not scored a stoppage-time winner, he revealed he was actually pleased to see the game not cut short by Benfica’s time-wasting.

“Let’s start with a compliment for the referee in Lisbon,” he said. “Because for the times I worked in football, I saw four minutes of extra time and then there was three minutes of time delaying and then at four minutes, the referee blew his whistle.

“But this referee kept on playing for a while. So maybe it was not in our advantage this time but I like to see these things.”

While Liverpool know they will finish at least second and will be a seeded team for the round-of-16 draw, Slot admits that it could still ultimately mean nothing for the Reds with it unclear how much of advantage such a position can be in the new Champions League format.

Meanwhile, the Dutchman also shared his relief at Liverpool skipping the Champions League knock-out play-offs round, courtesy of clinching their top eight finish.

“It doesn’t tell me anything,” he said. “Because in tennis, if you are the number one seed, you know it is always better to face the number 24 than to face the number eight or the number 12 because this is a ranking that is done for years.

“But now we are in a new format when some teams are high in the league table because they have a lucky draw or some teams are low because they have a very difficult draw.

“So it’s far off to say that it might be an advantage to be one or two. We still don’t know yet if that is an advantage or not.

“You might be lucky, you might be very unlucky. Ending up eighth could mean that you are maybe lucky.

“It doesn’t tell me anything. For me the most important thing tonight is we have been able to skip a round. That is definitely worth a bit.”

Slot also praised his team’s performance against Lille, but admitted he was frustrated by the Reds conceding from the Ligue 1 outfit’s only shot on target.

“I am used to it (performance) from these players,” he said. “What made it today asked a bit more from them.

“They had to be patient because the reason why Lille has done so well, 21 games unbeaten and the teams they have beaten in the Champions League, is, without any disrespect at all, but they don’t have the best players in the world - they have very good players but they don’t have the best players in the world.

“To be able to do so well tells you how disciplined they are, how hard they want to work, how well the manager does over there. They are really compact and defended really well. But we didn’t force the pass, we kept the ball for as long as we could.

“The only thing I wasn’t happy about is that, not for the first time in recent weeks, it was one chance for the other team and a goal. That’s maybe the phase of the season we are in at the moment.”