Arne Slot shared his thoughts on the dangers that Galatasaray could pose his players.
**Liverpool**lost 1-0 to the Turkish outfit in their second fixture of the league phase in the Champions League, and they will be wary of a repeat of that outcome when the two teams met on Tuesday.
*“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.*
“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.
*“There's not one team which you prefer to play in the last 16. 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 is we play two games. 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.
“We are the team in the Premier League that has the most ball possession, so that tells you how well we are able to bring the ball out from the back. Usually, we're also a team that doesn't concede a lot of chances, let alone a lot of counterattacks, because the more ball possession you have then you need to be well organised in ball possession, otherwise you don't have as much ball possession as we do.
“Galatasaray* has a lot of weapons, but transition is definitely one of them. One of the first ones you think about is Victor Osimhen, who is also a great striker in the box, can score from crosses, can score in multiple ways, but definitely a big threat on the counterattack as well. They have more than Osimhen in their front three that are fast. Last game we played them, it was Baris Alper Yilmaz who was twice a bit too fast for us because twice he was going towards the goalkeeper in the first half.*
“A lot of offensive threat and a lot of pace, and we need to be really aware of that – and we will because we played them already. We know now how fast they are and what qualities they have, even more than last time. But it's not always if you know what the strength of the team [that] you can prevent it from happening and that's the challenge for us tomorrow.”