Arne Slot believes that Liverpool will need to produce their best performance of the season if they are to beat Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Champions League last-16 second leg at Anfield on Tuesday night.
Liverpool, who are 15 points clear at the top of the Premier League table, head into action holding a slender 1-0 aggregate lead.
The Reds were indebted to the heroics of goalkeeper Alisson in that first-leg win last week with the Brazilian making nine saves - his personal record in a single match for Liverpool - as they survived an attacking onslaught from PSG before Harvey Elliott fired home an 87th-minute winner.
And Slot says that retaining possession will be key against PSG, a team he describes as "complete", if they are to progress into the quarter-finals of the competition.
"Of course we are hoping that we will have more of the ball than last week," Slot said when speaking to the media on Monday.
"But again, if you saw them [PSG] playing, they are very intense when they don't have the ball, which led to them creating a few chances as well because they took the ball away from us when we had build-up.
"But in the 87th minute when the ball was with Alisson, they moved forward with a lot of players, we played it long and they were open, where we could score our goal.
"When I watched the game back, I saw many moments that if a few of our players would have done better then that could have led to us creating chances. I also know from my experience, because normally my team is doing what Paris Saint-Germain is doing, that every other manager always says, 'We could have done better in these transition moments.'
"But the thing is, they did exhaust us a bit more than I wanted with them constantly pressing us. If you then get the ball, sometimes you're a bit too tired to make the perfect execution, and that's why it would be useful for us to have the ball a bit more.
"If we have the ball a bit more, hopefully the game opens up also a bit more for us. We know we can do better than last week but I don't agree with people that said that we had a poor performance, because I do feel you don't give the right credit to the team that deserves that credit, and that's what Paris Saint-Germain deserved last week. They were incredible last week."
Tuesday night's match will be the sixth time the two teams have met, and the stats slightly favour Liverpool, winning three of those encounters to the two of PSG, including both previous matches at Anfield.
Gakpo available to play
Cody Gakpo, who missed both the win in Paris and Saturday's Premier League victory over Southampton through injury, is fit and available for selection.
"Yeah, he [Gakpo] will be in the squad. He trained today for the first time," confirmed Slot.
Liverpool will be without Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez and Tyler Morton, however, who remain sidelined.
