Roy Keane didn’t hold back in his assessment of Liverpool ahead of their FA Cup quarter-final with Manchester City on Saturday.

Arne Slot’s side are 21 points adrift of league-leaders Arsenalon the back of a ￡450m summer spend having cruised to the Premier League title last term.

They have a fight on their hands to qualify for the Champions League and although they remain in UEFA’s showcase competition this season, a daunting quarter-final clash with Paris Saint-Germain means the FA Cup represents by far their best opportunity to claim silverware this term.

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Even that doesn’t appear all that likely as they head to the Etihad, and after both Alan Shearer and Paul Merson predicted a defeat for the Reds, Keane joined Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher in tipping Slot’s side to come unstuck.

Neville and Carragher went for 3-1 City victories and while Keane predicted a closer 2-1 scoreline, he took the opportunity to hit out at Liverpool, who he insists have been “so bad” this season and were “bad champions” of the Premier League.

“Liverpool are so bad,” Keane said on Stick to Football. “You know, one of the worst performances I’ve seen this season was Liverpool at Nottingham Forest— I know I’m going back six or eight weeks. I said they were bad champions.”

“Excited,” Slot said this week when previewing the game. “This is what we worked for throughout the season, to be involved in games like this.

“Of course, we probably played the toughest opponents you can face as well in the FA Cup as in the Champions League, but you always know if you end up in the quarter-finals that these are teams you can face. It’s exciting for us.

“I think it’s also for them challenging to play Liverpool. As we know, we played Paris Saint-Germain last season in the round of 16, now in the quarter-finals and both of these games were a joy to watch.

“I watched them back — both of them — I liked the one at Anfield a little bit more than the one in Paris, although we won in Paris and lost at Anfield.

“But [we’re] really looking forward to it. We’ve shown so many times this season that we can be a very good team.

“Unfortunately, we’ve also shown this season a few times that we look vulnerable, and we have to get the best out of ourselves as we’ve had many times this season.

“But that’s what we need definitely again in the upcoming weeks to do what we want to do and that is to continue our run in both cups and qualify for the Champions League next season.”

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