Arne Slot says Liverpool ran out of luck in penalty shootout defeat by PSG – as he insists his team ‘deserved more’ for their ‘incredible performance’

Liverpool crashed out of the Champions League in heartbreaking fashion at Anfield last night and manager Arne Slot says it feels unfair.

Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones saw their penalties saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma after the game went to an intense shoot-out following Ousmane Dembele’s goal in normal time levelled the tie.

And Slot said: ‘It feels unfair to go out at this round already, you’re at the top of the table then you face a team like PSG, but that’s also the nice part about football.

‘Everybody around the world enjoyed watching this game and the margins are small, and if you want to win it you have to have some luck, we had it last week, I don’t think we had it today.’

PSG put in a mercurial performance and could now meet another English side in the quarter-finals providing Aston Villa do not slip up against Club Bruges tonight.

Slot said it was the best game he has ever watched between two great teams. He added: ‘It was the best game of football where I was ever involved in. Incredible performance, especially compared to last week. First 20/25 minutes, we were all over them, created chance after chance and all of a sudden we were 1-0 down.

Arne Slot felt luck was against his Liverpool side as they were knocked out of the Champions League on penalties

Slot believes his team ‘deserved more’ before Gianluigi Donnarumma saved penalties from Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones (pictured) in the shootout

Virgil van Dijk vowed to rally his team-mates ahead of Sunday’s Carabao Cup final

‘Probably it was almost the opposite, maybe we ran out of luck because the margins were so small tonight.

‘After 90 minutes it felt we deserved more than being 1-0 down. I was waiting for us to score. I don’t think the second half, apart from the last five minutes, when they threatened us once or twice. We played the perfect game except from scoring goals, it was the same for PSG last week when they played the perfect game and didn’t score and it happened to us today.

‘It’s always difficult if you put so much effort in, for the first 25 minutes I’ve never seen them so aggressive and so intense as they were today, and then you look at the scoreboard and you’re 1-0 down, an unlucky goal as well. When you put in so much effort that’s sometimes difficult and in the end it comes down to penalties and we, as Dutch know how to lose (on penalties)!

‘It had everything you’d like to see from a football game. From a Liverpool perspective, you’d at least like to have a draw after 90 minutes but it came down to penalties.’

The Reds are this morning sweating on the fitness of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konate ahead of Sunday’s Carabao Cup final. The right back seemed to injure his ankle and will have scans in the next 24 hours, while Konate was more fatigue and should be OK.

Meanwhile, captain Virgil van Dijk has challenged his troops to put this behind them and go again in the cup final at Wembley on Sunday.

He said: ‘It’s part of football, I said to the guys, obviously, you can be disappointed because we’re out of the competition, but chin up and get ready for the next challenge, a beautiful one on the weekend.

‘I think we were pretty good today as well, and you want to go as far as possible, but we knew when we drew PSG it was going to be very difficult. We saw in Paris when we struggled but we won, and today we saw a very good Liverpool side but we’re out of the competition.’

PSG boss Luis Enrique claimed both teams deserved to go through after a hard-fought tie

PSG boss Luis Enrique said: ‘Both of the teams deserved to go to the next phase, they played better than us here but my team showed coming to a special place great personality and character but it was very difficult as they are very intense.

‘The character and personality, even when we had the penalty, they showed great character. It shows clearly the team we are.’