Kostas Tsimikas sends clear Arsenal message after Liverpool 'destroyed everything' last season
Kostas Tsimikas believes it is too early to say Liverpool can eliminate Arsenal from the Premier League title race when they travel to the Emirates on Sunday afternoon. And the Greece international says the squad have learned from last season when their campaign was "destroyed" by an FA Cup exit at Manchester United in March.
Tsimikas started in the Red Bull Arena on Wednesday as the Reds beat RB Leipzig 1-0 in the Champions League and he had a part in the winning goal when his cross for Mohamed Salah was nodded back for Darwin Nunez to score. The left-back, who deputised for Andy Robertson, saw his performance awarded UEFA's player of the match as a result.
Slot has now won 11 of his 12 games since succeeding Jurgen Klopp and the Premier League leaders, who sit second in the table of the revamped Champions League, visit Arsenal with the chance to go seven clear of the Gunners in the early months of the title chase.
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Tsimikas, though, rejects the idea that it is a chance to knock Mikel Arteta's men from the hunt already, believing it is too soon to make such claims ahead of the Premier League's standout fixture of the weekend.
"I think it is too early to say that," Tsimikas said. "I think we will go to Arsenal to play our football and to win the game. That is our target but we just take it game by game, to try and win and play good football.
"I think that is the important thing right now. It's too early to speak about [statements] but our goals at the start of the season, we said we wanted to win everything. It was just three points [against Leipzig], it was our aim to do that when we came here and we did exactly that, so we are very happy with the result."
Last season's 3-2 Cup defeat at United was a match the then quadruple-chasing Reds created a hatful of chances in only to be beaten with one of the last kicks of the 120-minute tie. It was the catalyst for a frustrating end to the campaign that saw the Reds knocked out of the Europa League by Atalanta before dropping to third and ending nine points behind eventual winners Manchester City.
The Old Trafford draw in the Premier League a few weeks later was the start of a sequence that saw Klopp's side win just four of their final 10 games in all competitions, one of which was 1-0 victory at Atalanta that still saw them knocked of the Europa League, and Tsimikas says some lesson have been learned from the end of last term.
Tsimikas added: "Last season, at the end, we destroyed everything after one bad result against Manchester United. I think the next fixtures back in the days we were not the team we were before, but I think we have tried to work game by game and every game is a final. We try to do what the manager is asking to win games.
"Like you say, there have been many changes [outside the squad] but I think the manager trusts a lot of the players here. We need that after this tough schedule that we have ahead of us. The main aim is to stick together, to recover and everyone has to be together if they want to win the league or Champions League
"Of course, many players they know the team, the Premier League and most of the boys have been in the team for many years so we know exactly what we want, how the new manager is with new plans and ideas, the most important thing is to learn every day, game by game to show what you can do with your football."