Arne Slot believes criticism of Liverpool's huge transfer outlay is unfounded, claiming the Premier League champions also raised £300m in player sales.

Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong and Giovanni Leoni all completed moves to Anfield in the recent transfer window, while a pre-arranged deal for Giorgi Mamardashvili was formally completed.

Those additions took Liverpool's spending past the £400m mark and eclipsed the previous highest spend by a Premier League club in a single window, by Chelsea in 2023.

The Reds' spending would have been increased by another £35m had a deadline-day deal for Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi not fallen through.

The Premier League champions may have smashed the British transfer record twice in the same window. Wirtz's move was worth an initial £100m, potentially rising to £116m, but Isak's £130m transfer means the former Newcastle United striker now holds that record.

However, speaking ahead of Wednesday's Champions League opener against Atletico Madrid, Slot pointed out that Liverpool raised significant funds through the sales of Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, Jarrell Quansah, Ben Doak and other players.

"There's so much focus on our new signings and especially pundits who favour, not us, but some other clubs in the country," he said.

"They cannot stop talking about £450m, I repeat £450m, £450m... but they always forget the £300m that we've sold!

"These players we've brought in are worth a lot of money but are playing now with players worth the same amount of money. 

"If we want to strengthen the squad, we have to spend that money. If we were to sell Dominik Szoboszlai tomorrow, he'd be worth £100m as well."

Liverpool are the only team to win their first four games of the Premier League season, scoring winning goals in the 82nd minute or later in each of their matches.

Despite the Reds not being at their devastating best thus far, Slot has been pleasantly surprised by their start.

"We are far above my expectations during the summer," he said.

"We all know what happened this summer and for us to be on 12 points from these fixtures is so much more than I expected, especially after so many changes in our group.

"I think we can do better but we're not going to face Newcastle away and Arsenal at home every time."