Arne Slot drops hint on Liverpool's major summer spending with 'extra weapons' admission

As someone who spent the best part of last week partying in Ibiza, celebrating a title win that was sealed before the beginning of May, does not seem like a manager of many regrets. And, of course, he is not.

Slot could not have hoped for a more impressive first season in one of football’s biggest jobs. The Dutchman would have signed for this when he landed on Merseyside.

But when he reflects, the one bump in the road that will shape his plans for next season came via the exit at the hands of Paris St Germain.

Firstly, he believes were unlucky to meet at that stage, considering they finished top of the qualifying table.

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But Slot also concedes that his side might have not been at their peak for the tie in early March because he had not rotated his players enough in the previous months. He says: “We were in the wrong place in the wrong time, facing Paris Saint-Germain.

"I think at that moment of time, that wasn't our best part of the season, although the home game we played really well. So you could argue if I needed to have rotated a bit more between November and March to be even fresher in that game."

Slot’s problem, though, is that his first-choice team was playing so consistently well, that he was loathe to make frequent changes. He goes on: “All the times I've rotated a bit too much, that didn't lead to us being successful.

"As we all know, we went out of the cup in Plymouth, and against PSV (in Champions League qualifying) we lost, which wasn't an important game anymore. And I think I made six substitutions against Paris Saint-Germain, where the extra time wasn't our best period of the game.”

Between the lines of that last observation, there is perhaps a suggestion that Slot is not convinced a squad that has scooted away with the Premier League is deep enough to be all-conquering at home AND abroad. And that is why he now admits he is looking to make serious additions to his roster of players.

“If I look at the way we think about next season and our squad, these are things that are on my mind,” he says. “I think we can find one or two extra weapons that this team doesn’t have.

"Maybe by using the transfer market. That is what we are trying to achieve. That will make us only stronger.

“That is what we need because we saw (Manchester) City spending £200m in the transfer window. All of them will.”

Liverpool are about to wrap up the £35million deal for Jeremie Frimpong and are also said to be one of the clubs chasing the Dutch wing-back’s in-demand Bayer Leverkusen team-mate Florian Wirtz. When asked about those possible transfer targets, Slot is predictably non-committal.

And he is eager to say how happy he is with his current squad. But it is clear those minor Champions League regrets mean Slot will make sure he has more ‘weapons’ to fight with next season.

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