Arne Slot became everything he hates with embarrassing Parisian submission and Liverpool still looked lost as desperate Dutchman edges closer to the Anfield abyss

At regular intervals throughout the past year, Slot has referenced Liverpool's Champions League last-16 second leg against PSG as the ultimate illustration of how he believes the game should be played. The Reds actually lost 1-0 on the night in question last March, before being eliminated on penalties, but they unquestionably played their part in an absorbing encounter between two top teams that Slot described as the best match he'd ever been involved in.

And that would be all well and good were it not for the fact that Slot also brought up the PSG game whenever his team were faced with the dreaded low blocks that they have struggled so badly to break down this season.

"My football is Paris Saint-Germain v Liverpool, Liverpool v Paris Saint-Germain - that is how I would love to have every single game," Slot stated after a 2-2 draw with Fulham in January. "But you need to have two teams to have an open game of football, and not all these things that don’t make a game of football nice."

Two of the main things that Slot felt were spoiling the spectacle of Premier League football were set-pieces and the time being wasted around taking them. For a self-proclaimed purist like Slot, the ever-increasing importance of corners, free-kicks and long throws was anathema to everything he believed in.

"My football heart doesn't like it," he admitted. "If you ask me about football, I think about the Barcelona team from 10, 15 years ago. Every Sunday evening you were hoping they would play. And if I watch other leagues, I don't think there's as much emphasis on set-pieces [as there is in England]."

It was, thus, shocking to see Liverpool time-wasting inside the opening 10 minutes of Wednesday's shameful showing in Paris, with Joe Gomez eating up as many seconds as humanly possible before launching a long throw into the PSG area.

Luis Enrique was rightly enraged by such negative tactics and repeatedly remonstrated with the fourth official to do something about it, but when asked about Liverpool's cynical approach to the game afterwards, the Spaniard pointed out that every team PSG plays is willing to do whatever it takes to frustrate the European champions.

In that sense, Liverpool were no different to any other side tasked with trying to nullify the most feared and fluid forward line in world football - but that wasn't remotely acceptable.

Liverpool arrived in Paris as the reigning champions of England, and yet they played with as much ambition as a third-tier team from France hoping to avoid a double-digit defeat - which was absolutely staggering in the circumstances.

The Reds ran PSG closer than anyone else in Europe last year and, after a historic £450 million outlay on new players last summer, the expectation was that when the two sides met again, Slot's men would have the requisite pace, intensity and versatility to cope with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia & Co. Indeed, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez were meant to be Liverpool's answer to PSG's dynamic full-back duo of Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, who played such a pivotal role in PSG conquering Europe for the first time.

Rather remarkably, though, the gap between the sides has actually widened this season because, in less than a year, Slot and Liverpool's recruitment team have managed to destroy the solid foundations put in place by his predecessor, Jurgen Klopp. Consequently, the Reds went to Parc des Princes not to win, but to withstand pressure.

In the latest of a long line of bizarre statements, Slot claimed after Saturday's FA Cup capitulation at the Etihad that the opening 35 minutes of the 4-0 defeat by Manchester City - in which Liverpool had held their own and created two good chances - had convinced him that his team remained capable of going "toe-to-toe" with Europe's elite.

However, the visitors' team sheet and tactics on Wednesday told a very different story, with Slot removing Mohamed Salah from the starting line-up and fielding a back five for the first time in his tenure.

It was, thus, immediately clear that the Reds weren't even going to attempt to take the fight to PSG. The plan - for want of a better word - was to back themselves up against the ropes right from the very start and soak up as much punishment as possible while trying to avoid a knockout blow.

That they achieved that meagre goal had nothing to do with the manager's change of system. Even Slot admitted that Liverpool spent the majority of the evening in "survival mode" and were only spared a more brutal beating by PSG's profligacy.

While it's long been clear that both Frimpong and Kerkez are better suited to playing as wing-backs, Liverpool never looked remotely secure in a formation that they'd never played before.

As Jamie Carragher pointed out on CBS Sports, Slot's change of system was counter-productive, in the sense that it actually weakened the Reds from a defensive perspective.

"When you look at how the manager has set up, he's tried something, but he's got it massively wrong tactically," the former Liverpool centre-half stated. "He went about it all wrong with the back five, because they were actually more open than they would have been with a back four, because they went man-to-man, meaning the three centre-backs had to cover the width of the pitch.

"And watching Virgil van Dijk tonight in the middle of a back three... Normally, when you get to a certain age, you think, 'That's perfect for me. I'm getting on and everyone's in position, it'll be a bit of extra protection for me.' But this was different. Defenders were jumping into midfield, there was nobody to mark, and Van Dijk, at 34 years of age, was constantly having to run across the line. And he couldn't do it.

"People have criticised Van Dijk for his performances this season, but I think it's been harsh, because he plays every game and the 'fella' next to him, [Ibrahima] Konate, who was poor again tonight, makes a mistake in every match, so that's not easy to play alongside. So, I actually think Van Dijk's still been one of Liverpool's better players this season.

"But tonight in that back three, I've never seen Van Dijk look so uncomfortable in a Liverpool shirt, and I think he'll be pleading with Arne Slot to never play that system ever again."

Liverpool's struggles with the new system were, of course, inevitable and indicative of Slot's desperation. Remember, the former Feyenoord coach had repeatedly rejected calls to try something different earlier in the season, telling reporters: "The system we are playing now suits the players best. I don’t know what is in your head but if, for example, you want another system with five defenders that could [create] an issue, because they have played this system probably throughout their whole career, and there is hardly any training time for us. So, it is almost impossible to change our complete idea about football if we play every two days."

And yet Slot felt that abandoning his entire ethos for what had become the most important game of Liverpool's season was a wise move. In reality, it was pure stupidity and smacked of pure panic, a hypocritical Hail Mary from a manager that clearly has no clue how to arrest the Reds' slide into abject mediocrity.

The hope will be that Liverpool can somehow replicate the quality and character they showed in last season's second leg against PSG as they look to turn the tie around at Anfield next Tuesday - but that's all it is, hope, because there is zero evidence to suggest that this team is capable of a comeback.

Wednesday merely hammered home just how much the Reds have regressed over the past year. Slot clearly isn't the only person responsible for Liverpool's lamentable decline, but the sad truth is that it's now only a matter of time before he's dismissed.

What we witnessed in Paris wasn't just an act of submission by the manager, it was a betrayal of his proud footballing philosophy, a sad admission that his team is nowhere near PSG's level - and that's just utterly unforgivable given the money spent last summer on a title-winning team.