What a player today Arne Slot praises Salah after his phenomenal performance incredible statements

Arne, congratulations. Liverpool are into the FA Cup quarter-finals. Was that a much better performance than Tuesday? Yes, although a lot of things were the same as well. I think in the first 15 minutes we had a lot of ball possession. We were more of a threat than three days ago, but still not that we created chance after chance after chance. They had one chance, scored one, so that's an improvement because three days ago they had one chance and scored two. Again, we conceded in the last minute, but this one didn't hurt us. After we went 2-0 up, I think the game was much more open and then we created a lot of chances. But until the moment we scored the 1-0, which I see him now behind you, Robbo, made a great goal. A 20-yard shot is not a big, big, big chance, but it makes life so much easier against a team that's defending with so many players, so tight and so aggressive, than scoring a goal like this. It's really helpful to win the game. He doesn't score many, does he? But 95 seconds between Andy Robertson's goal and then the assist for Mo Salah. How valuable is he to this team? Very valuable. First of all, because of the quality he brings. Second of all, for the personality he is. He hasn't played as much maybe as he would like to, although he played quite a lot, but last season he played more. But we've signed another very good full-back in Milos Gerkes. But today Robbo had to play, and if he has to play he always shows up. So he did really well today. The second goal was indeed a great assist, but a great lead-up to the goal, great attack, in my opinion. If the linesman raises his flag for Mo Salah, I always doubt him, because if there's one thing Mo is really, really, really, really good at, it's the timing of his run and not being offside. Mo was right, I was right, it wasn't offside. 17-year-old Rio Ungemoa got his start tonight, and he was given the player of the match as well. The only thing missing for him really was a goal. What did you make of his performance? A good performance. I think he was even better than when he came in three days ago. Kept the ball really well, was a threat constantly. A player that, as we know, because we don't see him for the first time, is able to beat his man in a one-on-one situation, and that's something you don't see a lot in modern football. So a good performance of him, and that's special if you're 17 years old and you can impact a Premier League game. I know it's an FA Cup game, but two Premier League sides. In this manner that shows that he has a lot of qualities. But on the other side there's a player Mo Salah, who he has to take an example of, because being a good player is not so difficult, but being a good player every three days, over a long, long, long period of time, that is something we're going to work on very hard with him to make sure he can go to those levels. You said before the game that Hugo Katike pretty much has to start every game at the moment. So how beneficial was it that you were able to give him a full rest tonight, and also to see Florian Wurtz back on the pitch ahead of a big Champions League game to come? Yeah, it's nice to have players available again, and not only 12, 13 or 14. I haven't spoken about it a lot, I don't think I spoke at all about that, but now we have them back maybe I can say something about it. These same players constantly had to play, every three days. And then sometimes that impacts also performances, and I think it's, as you see everywhere at Premier League side that have to play so many games, you see more rotation, but that wasn't always able. That's why I respect these players that had to play so much, a lot, and that they could not always bring their best performance, makes sense to me then. So it's good that today we could rotate a little bit more, and with players coming back, and players that came in doing really well, makes it for me easier to rotate, but also to impact the game off the bench. Well done tonight, congratulations. Thank you. OK, there we go. I want to start with a big win tonight, lots of different goalscorers, but also, as Jules was just saying there, really importantly, managing to keep Ekotike off the pitch and fresh, because the big game against Galatasaray is only on Tuesday. Yeah, huge game on Tuesday, and you're going to want to play the strongest team possible, and Ekotike is definitely part of that team. So yeah, it makes sense to rest him. I know we questioned it at the start, but they got the job done tonight, and there's a lot of top fixtures there. And as much as the domestic season hasn't gone well, the latter stages of the Cup competitions, you won't want to face Liverpool, because that's when clubs like this and teams like this produce their best. How winnable do you think those next games are, Michael? Very, very. I think Spurs aren't playing so well. Galatasaray's not a bad draw in the next round. Obviously, going away to Turkey is never easy, but they'll look at that and think, right, we can build some momentum here. We spoke about Ekotike coming back in, that's an absolute certainty. Great that he's had a rest. The guy that was just stood by us a moment ago, the big question is, will he play instead of Kyrgz? Because, of course, Kyrgz was rested as well, but I think he should, personally. I think he's been pensioned off far too soon by a lot of people. He's got a lot to offer still. Especially after that performance. OK, guys, after the break, we're going to get together. They're into the next round of the FA Cup, and we were talking before the game even kicked off about the importance of this competition for them, Jolien. A real chance at silverware for them. Yeah, it's huge, and Virgil van Dijk emphasised how important it is. Every competition is important for a club like Liverpool. Their objective is to win every competition that they enter, and as I said, with the way the season's gone domestically, this will be huge for them now. Yeah, especially with what's happened this season. Obviously, Premier League, it's a struggle. Just to get in the Champions League for next season, it will be good, and obviously they're not in the Carabao Cup. So all of a sudden, Champions League, FA Cup, take even bigger priority, and that was big today. Getting into the last eight of the FA Cup is important. Well, let's ask one of the players then. Andy Robertson is here joining us. Perfect timing, great to see you. Well done. How important was that, Robert? We were just saying, you guys, this is such a big chance at silverware in the FA Cup, so tell me how big this win was. Yeah, it was massive for us. I think Tuesday was not acceptable, and we know that, but it's quite rare in football that you get, in the next three days, you get to play the same team in the same place, and you get to put it right. So I thought today, from minute one, the performance was a lot better. I thought we had a lot more tempo, a bit more aggressive, and yeah, I thought then when we got our noses in front, we controlled the game really well, and that's what you've got doing, you know, cup football. We could see how motivated you were. You were the one that opened the scoring, and it was a hell of a goal. Do you want to see it? Yeah, go on. Yeah. Have a look at this. We're just saying as well, Mo Salah and the work that he did there was quite impressive, but your finish is very special. It's rare. It's rare. I think probably every Liverpool fan in the stadium expected it to go over the bar, but look, obviously, it's probably a rare one for me, but when you hit it, it's just delighted to see it go back in the back of the net, and obviously an important time in the game. A rare one for you, but your third goal against Wolves, which is more than any other team, so you must love a goal against Wolves. I don't mind a goal here, yeah. I remember scoring here a couple of years back, quite late on, and I think I scored in a home game as well, so yeah, look, Wolves is obviously a good team for me to score goals, so maybe that was in the back of my head, but yeah, just delighted to get the goal, and then we go and get one so quickly after, which was probably the most important. And it was your assist for that goal, Robbo. Aside from the assist and it was a great ball, how different is it playing with somebody like Rio in front of you? Because now you've got to start thinking, hang on a minute, I need to sometimes leave him to go one-on-one against his man instead of just overlapping all the time, like you maybe would a bit more with Gakpo playing. Yeah, look, I think early doors, I just said to him, look, I'm going to feed you the ball and let's see how you get on. I said to him before the game that I wanted to see his decision-making this game because he's only young, and I thought tonight he was outstanding, his decision-making was so good for a 17-year-old, and at times, sometimes he wants to take the whole team on and sometimes it's not the right time, but I thought tonight he made pretty much every right decision, and he's a credit to himself, he works so hard, he wants to listen to all the experienced lads, him and Trane Ione, Trane knows every single day, and they're great kids, a credit to their family, and I just think today he really came of age and if he puts more performances in like that, then he'll just get more and more game time. He's so exciting to watch, what is he like in training? You don't want to come up against him, that's for sure, not in one-v-ones anyway, he wants to take anyone on, he's got quick feet, he's not scared to take anyone on, but again, it's just keep going on at him about the decision-making because that's what will make him a top player, he's got everything there, everything in his toolbox to go and have such a special career and he's already shown that, and if we can help him on the way then so be it, and I thought today the experienced lads around him helped him, and I thought then he just flourished and fair play to him. He got man of the match today, but for the record, Ali McCoy thought it should have been you. I thought when Ali McCoy was on Coventry and I scored, I thought I'd stick on it, I can't believe he got it, but I'll give it to Rio, I'm delighted for him. What about for the next round, obviously you're the first team into the hat, but you talk about how important this run is. In the FA Cup, obviously going back to the Premier League, how much can you take from this competition to bring everything forward in the Premier League as well and just secure those Champions League positions? We've been trying to search for consistency all season, and we've not managed to find it yet. That's the truth of it, we've been up and down, up and down all season, we've put in some really good performances like we did tonight, but we've also put in far too many performances like we did on Tuesday. From now until the end of the season, the experienced lads are trying to get the newer lads and the younger lads to show that consistency, because if we do that and we play like we did tonight, I do believe we can go far in this competition and we can go far in the Champions League, but if we play like we played on Tuesday, then we won't go very far at all. It's trying to find that consistency, trying to find the good performances at the right time. We did that tonight, now we're into the last eight, one game away from Wembley. A lot of us know how special it was when we won it in 2022, and we're trying to say to the lads how big their days are out, and we want to feel that again this season. Obviously the Premier League's out of our reach, the Carabao Cup we're out of, so we've got two to go for, and if we show performances like we did today, then we've got a chance. Excellent, all right Robbo, go get warm, lovely to see you, congratulations as well, great to see you, take care. Let's get some reaction from all of us.