Arne Slot admits Kylian Mbappe’s dilemma could surprise Liverpool’s Jude Bellingham

The Liverpool manager has been looking forward to the big game at Anfield on Wednesday

The European champions, Real Madrid, are coming to town and a first chance to impress the manager’s great Carlo Ancelotti. For Arne Slot, however, there were more pressing matters at hand when he addressed the assembled media at Anfield on Tuesday afternoon ahead of tonight’s glamor clash.

“Now my family is coming over, so if I hurry up a bit, I have to get the groceries for them too and then go home!” laughs the Reds boss.

It was a reflection of the mood among Liverpool supporters at this time. Instead of tense apprehension, the visit of the Spanish champions is instead greeted with a sense of relaxed anticipation.

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If, under Jurgen Klopp, all roads in the Champions League ended with Madrid, Slot will hope that this latest brush with the Spanish capital instead underlines the bright new start to his tenure that sees him eight points clear at the Premier League summit and leading way in Europe.

Having lost seven of their last eight games against the Bernabeu outfit – including the 2018 and 2022 finals and the last 16 humiliation in 2022/23 – there will be a sense that a goal might be decided by some in the Liverpool squad , with the bonus it would further complicate Real’s underwhelming start to their Champions League defence.

For Slot, however, there is none of that baggage. “I didn’t realize we played them so many times,” he says. “I was aware that two years ago they – I say ‘they’ because I wasn’t part of it – were 2-0 up.

“I used that game for my Feyenoord team at the time to show that Real Madrid always find a way to win a game. When Liverpool were 2-0 up, nobody expected that game to end up being 5 -2 for Real Madrid, but that’s what makes them so special, that they can turn games around like that.

“They can win it in different ways and if it’s difficult for them they can still win a game and that’s probably one of the reasons – apart from the fact that they have so much quality – that they won this tournament a lot .

“If we are lucky enough to be a goal ahead or even more (on Wednesday), we are still aware of the fact, especially because of what we experienced two years ago, that the game will never be finished until the referee blows the whistle In general it is like that, but I think we all feel it a little bit more against Real Madrid than for some other clubs we face, I think they might have.

That said, the visit of the European Super League champions is arguably not even the biggest game at Anfield this week as Manchester City are welcomed on Sunday with the chance to go 11 points clear of the Premier League champions after just 13 games .

But Slot knows the importance of the occasion. “It’s a big game,” he says. “I think Real Madrid, Manchester City have dominated Europe and the league for a few years now combined with Liverpool, so it’s a special week for us, especially because we play twice at home. But when this week is done , another big week is coming with Newcastle away and the Merseyside derby.

“If you’re at Liverpool you always play big games, but yes, the next two are special because these three clubs have dominated the league and Europe recently.”

Not that Slot is afraid that his team may have one eye on their weekend task. “I think we gave the answer on Sunday at Southampton, where you could argue if the next games are Real Madrid and City, are the players really ready to perform or are they looking at the next game?” he says.

“They didn’t look at the next game. We don’t get distracted by next opponents.”

While Liverpool have won all four games in the Champions League this season, Real have struggled for consistent form after losing at Lille and, last time out, at home to AC Milan.

They will be without a number of players through injury, with Vinicius Junior – who scored the winner in the 2022 final – most recently sidelined. And Slot admits that the absence of the Brazilian international has meant a change to Liverpool’s game plan.

“We approach it differently as a new player comes to play for them with different qualities,” says the Reds head coach. “We knew when Vinicius would have started, I had to prepare them for him and Mbappe, they are probably the biggest attacking threat for Real.

“Now that Vinicius is not playing, we have to expect something different. I think he played almost every game for Madrid, so it’s quite difficult for us now to understand what to expect. What we know, what we can expect are 11 players with good quality and we try to prepare our players as best as possible.

“Does Bellingham want to play as a 10? Does he want to play from the left? Does he want to play from the right? Will Endrick come in? They have so many options. Now it’s a little harder for us to see what they’re going to do. If Vinicius was in form, I could probably have found their line-up, now it might be a surprise for us, what we know is that we are playing against 11 good players and a very good team.”

Finding a way to overcome it will be Slot’s next task. After shopping, of course.