Arne Slot has given his final thoughts on all things Liverpool ahead of tomorrow’s return to Champions League action against Lille.

The Reds can book their place in the last-16 of the competition with just a point against the French side, having already won all six of their opening games in the league phase. With just two more fixtures remaining in the opening stage, a win would guarantee at least a top-two finish.

Lille have been something of a surprise factor in this season’s competition, having lost just one of their six games so far and claimed scalps against Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid along the way. Nevertheless, Liverpool will be favorites to win once again at Anfield, and secure their spot in the knockout stages.

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Ahead of tomorrow’s game, Slot spoke to the press as he discussed all the burning issues around the Reds at the moment, with Darwin Nunez featuring heavily after his double at the weekend, as well as Diogo Jota’s latest injury. Here’s everything the Liverpool boss said during his press conference.

On Thomas Frank calling Liverpool the best in the world

"His opinion definitely means something to me. He has shown at Brentford how well he's done, so many years with this club, without spending crazy amounts of money. Just every time, he is able to perform with his teams very good in the Premier League and make it so hard for every top five, top six team to play against them, so his opinion definitely means something to me.

"But I think it is far too early for me to say these things. We have to face a lot of teams, Champions League format this season is also difficult, can we judge the league table in the Champions League because every team faced different teams, so you can be lucky or not with the draw you have. I don't think we were lucky.`

"It is always nice to get compliments from a manager who has proven to be such a good manager in the Premier League."

On Darwin Nunez

"I think the most difficult [thing] in football for a team, but also for an individual, is to find consistency. Only a few players in the world are able to be at the same level every three days in a row.

"And then there’s a big, big, big group of players that are able to play very well many times but not every single time – I think he is one of the players that belongs to the group that is good many, many, many times. The next step for him – it would be nice – [is] if he can go into the bracket of the five, six, seven or eight players in the world that are every three days outstanding. I do know we have also a few players that are every three days of a very high standard. It’s a nice challenge for him to go to that group of players as well."

On the importance of finishing top of the Champions League's league phase

"The most important thing every time we go out there, especially in front of our own fans, [is] we want to win a game. With this new setup, you think that ending up No.1 is the best position to end up with, but because it is such a strange league table – because, for example, I think I’m right, if I look at Paris Saint-Germain, every week I think they have the hardest team to face. So, they are quite low on the table, which is not their quality, but they are low. So maybe if you end up No.1 you can face them. Then it’s a disadvantage.

"So, I’m not looking at the league table in a way of ‘If we are No.1 we probably have the easiest team to face’ because that is impossible to say because of this weird format; ‘weird’ I don’t mean in a negative way, but this strange format we are having now.

"Being on top maybe doesn’t tell you you’re the best team. Being 24th maybe doesn’t tell you you’re No.24 in terms of quality. It has a lot to do with the teams you faced. So, we want to win but not from an idea about [that] it will probably give us then the best lead-up for the rest of the campaign."

What he's made of Lille

"I’m impressed, not surprised but impressed. Not surprised because I think it was two or three years ago I played [against] the current manager when he was at Rennes, with my former club. Then, I was impressed by the way his team played.

"Yes, of course, a few weeks ago when I didn’t see them playing yet, I was like, ‘Oh, they beat Atletico Madrid, surprise; they beat Real Madrid, surprise.’ But now of course, I saw many games of them and now I’m definitely not surprised anymore but impressed, because they’ve deserved every single point they got until now.

"I just said something about the league table; for them it’s definitely not because they’ve faced easy competition. They faced Sporting Lisbon when [Ruben] Amorim was still there and Sporting Lisbon were impossible to beat. OK, they lost that one. But they faced them, they faced Juve, they faced Atletico Madrid, they faced Real Madrid. And now they are facing us and the next game is going to be difficult for them as well because then they face Feyenoord, my former club.

"So they haven’t been lucky with the fixtures they had, so that’s the reason why I’m so impressed with them in the Champions League. And an unbeaten run of 21 games probably tells you even more."

On increasing Liverpool's attacking output

"I think I said [previously] that our performance stats, so in terms of running, have increased. Especially in the Brentford game because it was a tough game because Brentford are a team that are really fit as well, [that’s] one of the reasons why they are so successful.

"You tell me now that our attacking stats have gone up; probably true, I think we’ve scored more goals in the last five, six, seven, eight, nine games than we did before. But we’ve conceded a few as well, so we’ve needed these goals maybe more than we did in the beginning of the season. So, I don’t really see an argument where I can come up with why that has changed.

"The only thing I can say is that we are working longer together with the team and we know even better what we want when we have the ball. But [we] also need to know better what we want without the ball. But we do concede more, so it’s not always a straight line going up or going down."

On what he expects from Lille

"It is difficult for me to answer that question because many managers have changed their game plan against us compared to the games they have played before, in the last few months. But if I just look at how they’ve played in their last games and what their playing style is, I’m expecting an open game tomorrow because they are pressing every team, if it’s Olympique Marseille or Real Madrid or whatever team they face, they just press them high. They are not afraid to bring the ball out from the back.

"So, for us it’s going to be a change of styles compared to the recent teams we have faced, although Brentford also wanted to press us really high but also afterwards went to a real low block. But the three or four teams we faced before didn’t want to bring the ball out from the back. And that’s what Lille is doing, that’s what they are really good at, so that’s what I expect.

"But I expected that from a few teams we have faced in the last three or four games as well, but they changed their game plan against us. You have to ask their manager if he’s planning to play the same style or planning to change it!"

On whether Ryan Gravenberch’s minutes will need to be managed

"Maybe we don’t have someone that is exactly similar to Ryan but I think that is [the case] almost for all of them. So, Dom [Szoboszlai] is unique in his own way, Mo [Salah] is unique in his own way. We have of course Cody Gakpo, I don’t see him similar to Lucho [Luis Diaz] – similar position but not similar style of player.

"So, every player we have is unique in his own way and for Ryan it’s the same thing. We have players like Wata [Endo] who can play there, we have Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] who can play there – he played there against Forest in the last half-hour. And even Curtis Jones can play there.

"There’s always a balance. If you play them a lot and all of a sudden you drop points, you played them too much. And if they keep doing well, everybody is saying, ‘Yeah, the secret to success is that they always play with the same.’ And I’ve said many times already, it’s not about playing at 12:15, it’s not about these things, it’s about the competition you face and do we play to our standards? But I understand that to make it a bit more simple for everyone to understand, it’s about they play too much or too little – that is something we accept."

On when Diogo Jota and Joe Gomez could return from injury

"Maybe Jota is a bit earlier than Joe. Both of them are expected back with us in weeks, not in months, but I've said many times before, that the last stage of rehab is the most difficult one, or the one that can sometimes add a few days or not.

"It's clear that we're expecting them back with us in the upcoming weeks. It is always difficult to say exactly how long it is, but both of them are not going to be back in months, as long as the rehab goes well."

On Nunez's opportunity with Jota out

I don’t think it’s the first time that he’s in a situation like this. Even this season he has been in the situation, Jota has been out when in the Chelsea game someone hit him so hard that he was out for five, six, seven, eight weeks I think. That was a similar moment and I know from the past that he’s had a long run of games with Jürgen [Klopp] as well. But he is probably, as you guys say, in a good place now because he scored two.

Of course it’s simple: at the moment we’ve got four attackers that are top-fit and able to start the game, and Darwin is one of them. Then the fifth one is Federico [Chiesa], and then the sixth one, he’s not ready to start 90 yet in my opinion but is coming closer and closer to be able to do so. The reason why he isn’t is because he hasn’t had many minutes yet. So it’s not about him, it’s about me not giving him so many minutes, so that’s difficult for him then all of a sudden to go from five minutes to 90 minutes. That increases the chance for Darwin of course to get more playing time if one of the six is injured, especially if it’s a No.9.