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A hugely disappointing night for Arne Slot came as Liverpool lost Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konate to injuries before the Carabao Cup final

Liverpool have to quickly pick themselves up, after a deflating elimination that currently feels like the first time they are faltering under Arne Slot.

A treble evaporates for Liverpool, and a double may yet go with it. This penalty shoot-out defeat to Paris Saint-Germain after a 1-0 loss didn’t just cost them a place in the Champions League quarter-final, but also a series of defenders for Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Newcastle. Ibrahima Konate and Trent Alexander-Arnold are now in doubt, in developments that may end up the most significant of the night.

Against such talk of trebles and doubles, PSG showed an impressively singular mindset. They radiated manager Luis Enrique’s belief that they would win and turn this around, with huge slices of luck only bolstering their belief rather than weakening it.

That was needed, because so much of this outcome went against history and expectation. Liverpool lost a shoot-out in the European Cup and Champions League for the first time, despite the club having won them in even tenser situations. It is also the first time they have been knocked out at Anfield having won a first leg.

PSG meanwhile came through, from a situation that is commonly held up as a test of nerve. That certainly goes against the club’s recent history. Maybe that’s why they needed Enrique’s certainty, above all else, more than Lionel Messi or Neymar.

It might genuinely be a true threshold moment for the Qatari sportswashing project, their young team coming through where more glamorous and wealthy predecessors failed.

There is now a narrative richness to the likelihood that they will face Unai Emery’s Aston Villa in the quarter-finals, since he was the manager at the helm for that notorious 6-1 defeat to Enrique’s Barcelona.

There are so many storylines there, probably more than the Premier League tie we could have had between Liverpool and Villa.

Slot’s side will now be castigated for squandering an opportunity when they had been ahead and had been hailed as the best team in Europe.

That is perhaps a little harsh, since they just came up against a side that can now lay claim to that description.

PSG oddly weren’t as good as in the first leg, but they were more exacting, in what an excellent match.

A comment doing the rounds in football is that a grounded team doesn’t quite fit the nature of the club.

They were probably fitting winners over the full four hours of football… just about.

So much of the game was the reverse of the second leg. Liverpool immediately subjected PSG to a real storm, only for the French team to this time enjoy the satisfaction of delivering a sucker punch.

This one was much earlier than in Paris, setting up a properly pulsating second leg. It was Champions League football of the highest level, and intensity. There were some passages of play where it was both sides just constantly snapping at each other, pressing to the extreme.

That was only some passages, though. The game was mostly Liverpool pressing PSG right back to their goal-line.

In another reverse of the first leg, too, Slot’s side could also have been 3-0 up in the first 15 minutes. They were that on top, creating that many chances. Nuno Mendes, who generally had a good game against Mohamed Salah, set a tone by blocking the Egyptian’s goal-bound shot onto the bar.

Liverpool at that early stage looked a little rushed in attack. They were soon looking ragged, although that might have been understandable.

It was maybe the effect of PSG’s sucker punch, that was all the worse because of the nature of it. Luis Enrique’s side again exploiting unusually open space in the Liverpool midfield, Khvicha Kvaratshelia surged through in that inimitable style. He played it out to Bradley Barcola, who played it in for Dembele… only for Ibrahima Konate to direct the ball away from Alisson and into the forward’s path.

The entire tie was suddenly thrown in the air out of nothing. Liverpool, for their part, kept just going at PSG with everything.

A problem was how often the crucial final pass was just a few yards wide, or a few yards behind. When someone like Luis Diaz did get through to shoot, the finishes were even more frustrating because they were so close.

There was one significant difference from the first leg, mind. That was that, unlike in Paris, the home side did get better in the first half.

They upped it, with Slot adapting to shore up the centre of the pitch, for the team to go closer and closer to goal.

That just made the missed chances agonising rather than simply frustrating. So many seemed to flash wide. In a moment that seemed to sum up so much of the attacking in open play, Luis Diaz was open in the area for a killer moment in the second half… only for Salah to play the ball that bit too far away from him and the Colombian to miscontrol it.

Gianluigi Donnarumma, for his part, was a lot better than in the first leg – if still far from stellar. He was here at least beating crosses away, if not always holding them convincingly.

That was to only infuse his role in the penalties with more narrative tension.

Liverpool did seem to eventually tire, as almost symbolised in the injuries.

The minutes before penalties were PSG’s only spell of control, their midfield spraying the ball around with such assurance.

What mattered was the assurance in penalties, and they more than displayed that. There was a foreshadowing of the way it was going to go through the manner that Vitina nonchalantly stroked home a kick that Alisson should probably have stopped.

Donnarumma then of course saved from Darwin Nunez, who it was almost impossible not to feel sorry for. The Italian followed by getting down in an even more impressive manner from Curtis Jones. Desire Doue then sent it into the corner, to send PSG into the quarter-finals.

So much suddenly feels so different, not least the potential path of this Champions League season.