It has been a long two and a half weeks for Liverpool between matches, with the Reds being left to stew on their premature Champions League exit and League Cup final loss.

And the only reason why that would be different for Alexander-Arnold is because of his continued recovery from an ankle injury as opposed to where he might be plying his trade next season.

Unsurprisingly, we will not be getting the elusive answers from Slot regarding whether the England international will soon be Madrid-bound.

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But during his second answer, he quickly brought matters back to proceedings on the pitch, reflecting on Liverpool’s losses to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle United as though they had been three days ago rather than coming up to three weeks.

“I think there was a bit of noise about us losing against Paris Saint-Germain and losing against Newcastle as well,” he continued after initially dismissing that he was affected by such transfer talk.

That is for the first time we deserved to lose a football game; we were not tough in terms of defending, we were not good with the ball so there were not many things to like about the final.”

Yet his side’s performance against Newcastle was not the only thing still irking Slot, as throughout his press conference he also brought up his displeasure with his side’s FA Cup exit to Plymouth Argyle and the eight minutes of stoppage-time at the end of the last Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park back in February.

“For most of them, they didn’t forget because they know what happened and they are, like me, disappointed for us at not winning our first trophy and being out of the Champions League.

We’ve played a final so we’ve managed to get to a final against a very good Newcastle team.

“And we had one great game, we defended really well against Paris Saint-Germain.

“I do respect them a lot but they are not of Paris St-Germain or Newcastle quality

In a season of few disappointments, the Dutchman has seemingly been reliving them all during his international break.

But now the Reds have the opportunity to belatedly get such disappointment out of their system, with Slot ‘desperate’ for his side to play again ahead of hosting Everton.

“I definitely am (desperate to play again) because it has been 15 or 16 days, or even longer, since I last managed a game,” Slot admitted.

As the Premier League title run-in gets underway, Slot and his side have endured enough time stewing on past disappointments
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