Arne Slot makes Champions League point everyone knows - but no-one dare say

Arne Slot insists it is not important to finish top of the revamped Champions League group.

The Dutchman’s Liverpool side can confirm their last-16 spot with a point against eighth-placed Lille at Anfield. But a victory over the Ligue 1 side and Barcelona dropping points at Benfica would also secure top spot for the Reds, who have won all six games so far in the new-look competition.

Yet Slot warned that despite ensuring a place as top seeds, there will be quality teams in the lower half of the competition’s table because of the fixture layout.

He said: “With this new set-up, you think that ending up number one is the best position to end up with. But because it's such a strange league table, because, for example, I think I'm right, if I look at Paris St-Germain, every week I think they have the hardest team to face.

“So they are quite low on the table, which is not their quality, but they are low. So maybe if you end up number one, you can face them. So that's a disadvantage.

"So I'm not looking at a league table in a way of, oh, if we are number one, we probably have the most easy team to face, because that is impossible to say. We want to win, but not from an idea that will probably give us the best leader for the rest of the campaign.”

Slot confirmed that Diogo Jota will return in “weeks rather than months” after he confirmed the Portuguese forward will not feature.