Arne Slot believes Liverpool topping the revamped Champions League table has offered them no assurances for the knockout stages. The Reds finished in first place ahead of Barcelona despite a much-changed side falling to a 3-2 defeat at PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday evening.

Liverpool had already sealed their place directly in the last 16 – while avoiding the need for a play-off round – by winning their first seven games in the competition this season.

The Reds will now face one of Paris Saint-German, Benfica, Monaco and Brest in the first knockout round in March, which will be determined by a draw after two winners emerge from the play-off round next month.

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And Slot is mindful of the fact a game against French champions PSG, who were among the pre-tournament favourites, could be the reward for finishing first.

“It’s definitely a good achievement to end up top of this league,” he said. “But I said many times it’s hard to judge a table after eight games, let alone with the teams playing different opponents.

“It doesn’t tell me much, some have faced easier opponents than others but it’s always nice if there’s a new format and you end up number one.

“But it doesn’t give us any assurances for the next round, I see the four teams we can face and especially one of them is definitely one you are hoping not to face if you end up first in a group like this.”

Liverpool suffered only their third defeat of the campaign despite twice going ahead through a Cody Gakpo penalty and Harvey Elliott’s strike, with PSV netting through Johan Bakayoko, Ismael Saibari and Ricardo Pepi before the break.

Slot left 12 senior players on Merseyside while Darwin Nunez returned home early from Holland after suffering illness.

And of the game, the Reds boss said: “At the end it didn’t have any effect on the table of the competition and what it meant for the next round. I saw some good things, I saw goals conceded that I’d like to see us do better but I’m sure it’s the same for PSV the way they gave goals away.

“But it’s football. It’s good to see some players who didn’t make 90 minutes in a long time make an impression today.

“I’m not going away with a bad feeling but I think it’s a shame that we lost. I saw some positive things and when the game is finished I always say I’m looking to next game. Maybe this is the only exception in my career that I was looking a bit more towards Bournemouth and that’s the focus from now on.”

Slot added: “It was an eventful game with many goals, and everybody expected that before the game. There are two reasons, one being there were two managers who always want to press the ball high and bring the ball our from the back and sometimes you see mistakes. The other is that both teams – maybe mainly ours – wasn’t playing with the set-up we usually do.

“Then you see in some moments that we defend in a way that was not expected if we played with all of our starters. In the end we were able to make a game out of it with all the youngsters on the pitch. It was eventful, that’s the word I would use.”