Arne Slot insists it is too early to call Liverpool the best team in the world after high praise from Brentford boss Thomas Frank.
The Bees manager hailed the Reds as a “level above” Arsenal and Manchester City and the “best team in the Premier League and world” after Darwin Nunez’s stoppage-time double saw Slot’s side move six points clear at the top of the table at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday.
But Slot tried to dampen down that talk ahead of Tuesday night’s Champions League clash with Lille, in which the Reds need just a point to confirm they have qualified for the last-16 of the Champions League by finishing in the top eight of the new format.
The Dutchman said: “His opinion means definitely something to me because he's shown at Brentford how well he's done so many years for this club and without spending a crazy amount of money, just every time he's able to perform with his teams very good in the Premier League and make it so hard for every top five, top six team to play against him, so his opinion definitely means something to me.
“But I think it's far too early for me to say these things. We have to face a lot of teams. Champions League format this season is also difficult. Can we judge the league table in the Champions League?
“Because every team faced different teams, so you can be lucky or not with the draw you had. Don't think we were lucky though. So very difficult to judge the league table, but always nice to get compliments from a manager that has proven to be such a good manager here in the Premier League.”
Slot, who later revealed Diogo Jota will be sidelined for “weeks rather than months”, insists finishing top of the new Champions League group stage won’t be important. The Reds can secure top spot if they beat Lille and Barcelona fail to beat Benfica.
The Dutchman added: “The most important thing every time we go out there, especially in front of our own fans, we want to win a game. And 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 because of this weird format, or weird, I don't mean in a negative way, but this strange format we are having now.
“So being on top maybe doesn't tell you that you're the best team, and being number 24 doesn't tell you that you're number 24 in terms of quality.
“It has a lot to do with the teams you've faced. So, yeah, we want to win, but not from an idea that will probably give us the best leader for the rest of the campaign.”