2026-03-13 11:50:42
Arne Slot won’t be “jumping to conclusions” about the struggles of English teams in the Champions League.
None of the Premier League’s six representatives won the first leg of their last 16 ties this week – with Slot’s Liverpool side falling to a 1-0 defeat against Turkish giants Galatasaray – but the Reds boss says fans and pundits shouldn’t draw conclusions from a single round of games.
Slot said: “To jump to a conclusion after one gameday, I think that’s such a small sample size, that’s never the smartest thing to do. Maybe, after next week, we will have a completely different conclusion.
“In general, it’s not helpful for English clubs not to have a winter break. I’m not saying all these teams lost because we don’t have a winter break.
“Why [the lack of victories]? Because you are facing, in the last 16 of Europe, some very good teams. And, four of the five [other] teams in the Champions League played away from home.
“That’s usually an advantage to play at home or a disadvantage to play away. To jump to conclusions – [whether it is] missing a winter break, [or that] the level of the Premier League is not as high as we expected it to be – that would be, for me at this moment of time, not the right conclusion to make.”
The Dutch coach thinks that fans should see how next week’s second legs play out before reaching a verdict on the Premier League’s status in Europe.
Slot said: “Let’s first judge us all after next week and maybe even then it’s still too early to jump to conclusions.
“If you are in the Champions League last 16 then all the teams are very good and strong teams. The margins were, in all the games I saw and in ours, really small. We didn’t deserve to lose.
“Jumping to conclusions about one game is usually not what I would do.”
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