Arne Slot believes Liverpool have shown they possess the quality and depth to sustain a quadruple challenge and avoid the tail-off that Jürgen Klopp’s side suffered last season.

Liverpool’s defence of the Carabao Cup continues at Tottenham on Wednesday in the semi-final first leg. With a six-point lead in the Premier League, plus a game in hand over their closest challengers Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, the only 100% record in the Champions League and an FA Cup third-round tie against Accrington Stanley on Saturday, Liverpool have legitimate designs on four trophies in Slot’s debut campaign. The team were in a similar position 12 months ago but a poor end to the season ruined Klopp’s hopes of adding to the Carabao Cup victory over Chelsea. Slot is confident there will be no repeat.

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“It is very difficult for me to compare last season with this,” said the Liverpool head coach, who is likely to make changes at Tottenham. “The only thing I do know, and what gives me the most confidence for the coming weeks and months, is that until now we haven’t stolen one point. All the points we got were fully deserved and I think even in some moments we deserved more than we got. That is the best forecast you can have for the second half of the season.

“All the players are fit at the moment but if we drop points when we have injuries, people say it is because you have injuries. If Mo [Salah] misses a penalty against [Real] Madrid he is distracted by his contract situation. If Trent [Alexander-Arnold] has not his best performance [against Manchester United] he is distracted by the contract situation. If they play really well nobody tells me: ‘That’s because they have a contract situation.’ We always try to find arguments but nine out of 10 times the best argument is the quality of the team you face or the gameplan the other team has.”

Liverpool were quiet in last summer’s transfer window, bringing in only Federico Chiesa for £10m, and Slot insists the first half of the season has vindicated that. Despite pursuing a quadruple, he does not expect that transfer policy to change in January.

“It would be a bit weird if I said during the summer that we’re very happy with the team and then I told you something different now,” he said. “You always look at the market, this club has always done that. We did that with the goalkeeper we don’t even have at the moment [Valencia’s Giorgi Mamardashvili]. The team is in a good place. Unfortunately Joe Gomez is injured, which means we go from four centre-backs back to three, but he will be back in a few weeks. I’m very happy with the team and I think they deserve that trust from the club and from me if you look at the performances over the last half a season.”

Slot again rejected suggestions that Madrid’s move for Alexander-Arnold has distracted the defender, who toiled in Sunday’s draw against United. He said: “I think we were all disappointed by the way we played, not only Trent. These players know if you play 50-60 games a season once in a while you don’t have your best performance. Maybe we should highlight more how good it is that these players can play at such a good level every three days.”