Right. Let me get this straight.

Liverpool lose 2-0 to Paris Saint-Germain. At the Parc des Princes. In the Champions League quarterfinal. Arne Slot himself admits his team were "ripped apart." And the headline is that he's RELIEVED?

Relieved.

In my day, if your team got ripped apart in Europe, you sat in that press room looking like you'd swallowed a wasp. You mumbled something about "not being good enough on the night." You refused to make eye contact with the journalist from the local paper who you'd been dodging since Tuesday. You went home and didn't sleep for three days.

You did NOT sit there with a straight face and tell the world you were relieved.

That's the problem with modern football. Losing has become acceptable as long as you can spin it. As long as you can frame the narrative. "We're still in it." "It's only the first leg." "The tie is alive." The tie is alive? Mate, your team was on life support for 90 minutes and Dembele only forgot to pull the plug because he can't finish anything, including his breakfast.

Don't get me started on "still having hope." Hope? You got dominated from start to finish. PSG could have had four or five. The only reason it's 2-0 and not 5-0 is because their forwards kept missing. That's not hope. That's luck. There's a massive difference. Hope is when you've got something to build on. Luck is when the other lot couldn't be bothered to bury you properly.

I managed Barrow for three seasons. Lovely club. Terrible pitch. One time we lost 4-0 at Morecambe in the first round of the FA Cup. My chairman came into the dressing room after and said, "Well, at least it wasn't five." I told him to get out. Because that's not how you respond to a hammering. You don't find the silver lining. You find the problem.

But this is what happens now, isn't it? Managers have got media training. They've got PR people. They've got analysts telling them the xG wasn't actually that bad. Oh, lovely. The xG. I'm sure the fans who spent a fortune flying to Paris will be thrilled to hear the expected goals model gave them a fighting chance.

Slot is a clever bloke. I'm not saying he isn't. He did brilliant things in his first season. But there's something deeply troubling about a manager who watches his team get systematically dismantled and walks out talking about relief. It tells you something about the culture. About the standards. About what's considered acceptable at the top level now.

In my day, getting ripped apart in a European quarterfinal meant crisis meetings. It meant the board asking questions. It meant fans on the phone to the local radio station using language that would make a docker blush. Now it means the manager does a press conference, says a few calming words, everyone nods, and we all move on to the second leg pretending we've got a plan.

Liverpool need to score at least twice at Anfield. Against a PSG side that just proved they can tear them to shreds. And the starting point for that comeback is a manager who looked at the wreckage and felt relieved.

I'm not relieved. I'm furious. And I wasn't even there.

You want to know the worst part? He's probably right. Liverpool probably will make a game of it at Anfield. The crowd will be up for it. They'll get an early goal. Hope will be restored. And if they go through, Slot will be a genius. The narrative will be: "He kept calm. He stayed positive. He believed."

And if they go out, nobody will remember he sat there after getting battered and said he was relieved about it.

That's the problem with modern football. The words don't mean anything any more.

Don't get me started.