PA Media/dpa
London
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot knows his side will be judged after a series of hugely-significant matches over the coming weeks.
The Dutchman has enjoyed a record-breaking start to his tenure at Anfield, winning eight of his first nine games, but even he admits the quality of the opposition has not been the most taxing.
All of their seven league opponents are currently in the bottom half of the table but the stakes start to ramp up, with the leaders hosting Chelsea on Sunday ahead of a Champions League trip to RB Leipzig and a clash with Arsenal at the Emirates.
There are other league games against Brighton, Aston Villa, Southampton, Manchester City, Newcastle and Everton, with fixtures against Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid in the Champions League and Brighton in the League Cup.
“If you judge your team on only a week, that would not be fair,” Slot said of the next seven days.
“Even though if we do really well it wouldn’t be fair. So I think we have to judge us as a team after this spell of games - not three of them but six, seven or eight of them.
“Then we know better how we act and how we perform if we play tough Champions League games and tough league games.
“That is normal in everybody’s season and we know how difficult it is.” Liverpool come up against a Chelsea team who have found some form, with five wins and two draws in their last seven games in all competitions.
