The Reds return to RAMS Park, where they were beaten in the league phase 1-0 back in September, to kick off their Round of 16 tie.
The first leg in Turkiye is Slot’s 100th game in charge of the club and he previewed the occasion by attending a press conference on the eve of the match.
Read on for the key points from his session with reporters.
On facing Galatasaray again…
Indeed we played them, so we knew them already really well. And after playing them, we know them better. And now before playing them, you start to watch even more games. I have a lot of respect for Galatasaray, for their manager. He’s been so successful here as a player and now as a manager, won so much with this club. Recently they played Besiktas – who have one of my former players, Orkun Kokcu, who I know is a very good player as well – but they are even able to beat Besiktas with 10 men, so that tells you a lot about how the team is fighting, if that is necessary.
So, they have quality players that can fight and they have great fans behind them. We need to be so, so, so good tomorrow to bring a result back to Anfield and that’s what we’re going to try. Last time when we played them there was not a lot between us and them. We both got a penalty, unfortunately ours was overturned by the VAR and theirs was given. And in open play I think we were quite similar, a 50-50 game that we lost because of that penalty. Two very good teams playing against each other tomorrow evening.
On drawing Galatasaray in the last 16 and the atmosphere at RAMS Park…
They have a very good team and we have a very good team. So are you happy to play against them? No, there’s not one team which you prefer to play in the last 16 because they are all very good teams – including Galatasaray. We’ve already lost against them, so that tells you how difficult of a game it is for us. The good thing now is that we play two games. Where in the group stage you only play away against Galatasaray. Now we also have a chance to play in front of our own fans, which will be impressive for Galatasaray.
These fans over here are very impressive, we’ve noticed that when we’ve played here. The good thing is we’ve experienced it already once now. That’s maybe a positive thing. The Galatasaray players are experiencing this every home game. But for us it was new when you have the ball that the whistling, if that’s the right word, is so loud. That was new for me and even for all of my experienced players. So, the good thing is that we’ve already experienced it. But we not only play against the fans, we also play against 11 very good players that are a very strong team, managed by a very good manager.