Despite the dismal defence of their Premier League title, Liverpool sit a respectable fourth in the Champions League standings entering into the final round of league phase fixtures, with only Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid ahead of them in the standings. Qarabag, billed as the surprise package of the European season so far, sit 18th and are on the cusp of reaching the knockout round play-offs.
Slot was asked for his assessment of this plucky Qarabag side, to which he replied: "It's always the individuals and the players that make things difficult. In terms of playing style, they are very direct, fast players, go very direct towards goal with a lot of runs in behind, players who are comfortable on the ball. They've shown this season against big clubs - because there are only big clubs in the Champions League - that they are a very good team and a hard team to beat. Even [against] Chelsea they were able to keep them to 2-2.
"I think even if you look at our Champions League campaign this season, some teams maybe have been lucky enough to face the ones that are now all outside the next round from 24th to 34th place. I think there's only one team from those 10 that we faced. We've had a lot of strong teams to face and we did really well. But maybe two days afterwards when we had to play in the league that brought us some problems because we've played so many strong teams in Europe."