As Liverpool gets ready for Tuesday’s Champions League match against in-form French team Lille, manager Arne Slot feels it is much too soon to declare his team the best in Europe.
Premier League leaders Liverpool defeated Brentford 2-0 on Saturday thanks to goals from Darwin Nunez in stoppage time, which prompted host manager Thomas Frank to bestow that title on them.
“I think it’s far too early to say these things. We (are yet) to face a lot of teams,” Slot said of Frank’s remark.
“But it’s always nice to get compliments from a manager who has proved himself in the Premier League.”
After winning all six of their games, Liverpool leads the Champions League standings by three points, while Lille, led by Bruno Genesio, is in eighth place with 13 points in the final automatic qualifying berth.
“When we go out there we want to win a game, you would think as number one it is the best position to end up at but it is such a strange league table,” Slot told reporters on Monday.
“Because every week, I think even if you face team lower down the table, they are the hardest team to face (because you have not faced them before).
“You cannot judge the table and say who is the best right now, we haven’t (played) the same teams.”
Lille has won 21 straight games across all competitions.
Slot stated that the French team, who have defeated Real Madrid 1-0 at home and Atletico Madrid 3-1 away in their previous two Champions League matches, have impressed him but have not come as a surprise.
“They have deserved every single point … they drew with Juventus, beat Atletico Madrid, Real and now they face us and then my former club Feyenoord.
I’m really impressed because they haven’t had luck with the fixtures.
The Dutchman stated that it will take “weeks rather than months” for attacker Diogo Jota and defender Joe Gomez to recover from their injuries in time for the Lille match.
Nunez, 25, who secured the victory at Brentford and now has six goals and four assists across all competitions, still needs to improve his consistency, Slot continued.
“The next step for him will be to go into that group of seven or eight players in the world who can perform at that standard every three days,” he said of the striker.
