If anyone was wondering how much Arne Slot was feeling the heat during the worst run of his Liverpool tenure, they were given their answer when the team news dropped at 6.30pm.

It would have been easy for an embattled manager, knee deep in the mire after five defeats in six, to have picked a slew of his big guns for this fourth-round tie against Crystal Palace.

Instead, Slot selected the exact sort of team that the Liverpool boss would reasonably be expected to at this stage of a competition that, plainly, sits bottom in the list of priorities. The message, despite the month from hell, was crystal clear: there's no panic here.

OPINION

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