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Arne Slot described the tactical shift that helped push Liverpool to a memorable victory over Paris Saint-Germain as a "miracle". The Reds overcame a first half hammering to seize control of their Champions League round of 16 tie, with substitute Harvey Elliott's late strike sealing a 1-0 victory at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday evening.
PSG controlled the first half proceedings, but their opportunities were limited to efforts from outside the box in the second half as Liverpool attempted to deal with the French side's attacking threat.
And Reds boss Arne Slot explained: “We changed a bit the way we pressed in the second half compared to the first half.
“In the first half they had three or four open chances and the moment they went one on one, in the first half it was almost a miracle it was 0-0. In the second half it was more due to their quality that they could create chances.
“PSG was by far the better team in ball possession than us. It’s a very good result for us but we also felt the quality of PSG. I knew it before, they’ve scored loads of goals and won 10 times in a row. Every underlying stat showed they were best team in the Champions League apart from the league table.
“They’ve had Arsenal, Bayern, Atletico and Man City and Atletico Madrid and still have best underlying stats. I wasn’t surprised they were so good.”
Slot applauded Italian referee Davide Massa's performance in addressing PSG's belief that Ibrahima Konate should have conceded a penalty and been sent off for colliding with Bradley Barcola.
“I was very happy that with difficult circumstances the referee wasn’t always persuaded, it's not always that situation in away games,” he said.
With the win Liverpool will now enter the leg-2 encounter of the contest with a slender lead. However, the Anfield crowd will be expected to play its role and with all that has transpired one could assert that Slot's men have partially reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
