Can Arne Slot's Liverpool Realistically Win the Premier League?
Slot has had statistically the best start in the history of Liverpool managers. Can Slot's machine keep up the momentum?
There was a winning jauntiness to Arne Slot as he walked behind his team on to the Anfield turf before the game against Manchester City a couple of weeks ago. Slot’s left hand was in his trouser pocket but his right arm was swinging crisply – some might say impertinently – by his side, as he followed his Liverpool team on.
It is not a long walk, out of the tunnel, onto the pitch to the dug-out. There’s no time to gain any momentum or follow-through. It’s not as though you’re really pounding the turnpike or getting up a head of steam as you walk past the ducks on your evening constitutional round the dam with the dogs.
But here Slot was, gaining strength from the situation around him. He carried that breezy swing of the arm with him all the way to the side of the pitch until he’d sat down. He was – you might say – not walking alone.
It was the walk of a man who, a couple of days beforehand, has just beaten Real Madrid 2-0. It was, therefore, the walk of a man who is as happy as a fellow can be. A fellow who has just won a year-long free subscription to the Joe Rogan Show and has a free tattoo on his chosen part of his anatomy thrown in for good measure.
But it was also the walk of a man who is trying to keep his confidence (and his sense of occasion and the excitement it brings) within proportion. Proportion, and keeping it, is something Slot will have to tag with more and more as the 2024/5 Premiership season unfolds.
Slot was trying to keep things in proportion, yes, but, finally, failing, because his body, through that mildly flouncy swing of the arm, gave him away.
Explained differently it was the walk of a man about to receive an honourary degree from his old university, or, of a man giving his daughter away to a son-in-law of whom he approves.
A man, in other words, who cannot help himself. If the walk spoke, what did it say? “Nothing – bar the sky falling on Virgil van Dyk’s head or Mo breaking a toe – can stop the Slot machine from pumping out the wins now.”
Remember, Slot’s jaunty walk was walked before the 2-0 win over Manchester City. It was a win, everyone agreed, that could have been five, or six or even seven. He didn’t know what the result was going to be when he walked the walk but – here’s a guess – he had a pretty good idea that, out on the pitch, his team would walk the talk.
Although he had a pretty good idea, even Slot, he of the impertinently swinging arm, couldn’t have foreseen the existential size of the win. The margin of victory tells us little. In symbolic terms, it was huge.
On the first day of the twelfth month of 2024, it looked as though there was a gulf between not only Liverpool and Manchester City but Liverpool and the rest of the league. It looked to some as if this gulf would turn out to be definitive. They were saying as much.
Slot’s body language might have given his underlying self-confidence away, but his opponents’ that evening in Liverpool, simply gave way. They subsided. Through age and leaking confidence, through fatigue and the absence of Rhodri and Kevin De Bruyne, through the ennui of having nothing left to achieve, City melted. It was almost as though you were looking at them cave in before your very eyes.
It was like watching a football match not in a uniform expanse of time but in superimposed two temporal registers. Liverpool was playing in one time, and time and time again, this time was in advance of City’s time, who were playing in another.
This was mostly the time of being out of time, of being out of kilter, of watching time pass or not having enough of it. Time is City’s friend no longer. It is not – as they say – on their side. And you rather feel that the January transfer window isn’t going to help them much either
.One of the consequences of City not having quite enough time was that they were clumsy, not something you readily associate with Pep Guardiola’s sides.
We tend to think of clumsiness as innate – certain people are naturally clumsy. But isn’t clumsiness an effect of mind? Isn’t clumsiness related to uncertainty? Or diffidence? Or lack of confidence. People who trip, do so because they’re tired or mentally fatigued. How often did City give the ball away against Liverpool because they dealt with it clumsily? How often did they trip? They did it dozens of times.
Time is on my mind because three days is clearly an eternity in English football. On the Wednesday, following the overwhelming win against City, Liverpool travelled to Newcastle United, while City bused to Nottingham Forest, the only side who have beaten Liverpool in the league this season.
If the contrast between Liverpool and the rest was stark on the weekend, it was a different story in midweek. On the Wednesday night it was Liverpool’s turn to look ordinary – certainly in the first half against Newcastle.
Forced to rest and re-jig, Liverpool looked frustrated and out of rhythm, squeezed to the point of fluster by Newcastle’s high press. Ryan Gravenberch looked anything but composed; starved of space and ball, Mo Salah looked ineffectual. Alexis Mac Allister, Liverpool’s most combative player, hit the post as he – proverbially-speaking – hit his head against a brick wall because he couldn’t ignite his tea-mates and had a half-long spat with an over-zealous referee.
Liverpool couldn’t keep the ball. They couldn’t get it. They looked as if they had left their best selves behind at Anfield. They looked all over the place.
Slot brought them in, counselled calm and presumably spoke about the hitherto neglected arts of the long ball. He brought on his big guns, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai and Luis Diaz, the Colombian, with just over 20 minutes to go, something he might have hoped to avoid given the congested calendar that faces them at home and in Europe over the next six months.
Liverpool set about making a game of it in the second-half, as Mo put his bewildered slightly lost air behind him and they began to do some damage of their own.
The 3-all draw between Newcastle and Liverpool told us a couple of things. If we’d forgotten, it spoke of the league’s insane competitiveness. The match also provided a hint that Liverpool’s bench strength isn’t perhaps of the quality it needs to be if they’re to mount a compelling challenge both at home and in Europe.
The Newcastle draw also threw up a salutary lesson. Historians of the game might yet single out the first day of December 2024 as a turning point – a symbolic passing of the baton – but they might also caution against wild generalisations and get stuck into the empirical cut and thrust of the game.
Let’s remind ourselves that April, when the league is often won and lost, is some months’ away. Slot knows this, so while keeping his eye on the big picture, he will also be focused on the little one. The impertinent swing of the arm will leave him – it might very well leave his side, too – as he grapples with more quotidian matters.
Who is injured? Who is returning from injury? How much can I squeeze out of Mac Allister over Christmas? Who is yellow-carded? How do I keep it in proportion and how do I transmit that to the players? Most important of all, is Virgil happy? As far as The Reds are concerned, Slot will increasingly find that the devil is in the human detail.
On the Wednesday night when Liverpool came back down to earth, City raised their hand like the sickly boy who hasn’t attended school for the last three or four weeks. It was less a question than a statement they made against Forest, a neat, unambiguous 3-0 statement, a statement which said politely that dismissals – let alone, obituaries – are premature. Obituaries for us, as a club, and for Kevin, as a player, are perhaps over-hasty. All you gleeful writers, pen them at your peril.
Quite what has gone on between Guardiola and De Bruyne is one of the unanswered dramas of the season. Was it no more complicated than a falling out over Kevin’s contract?
Did the two discover that they were no longer exchanging recipes for their favourite Thai meals together? Was there friction on the golf course, with Kevin finding that Pep – who always struggles with his driving – had naughtily fudged his card?
Whatever it was, City’s flattening by Liverpool at Anfield seemed to finally persuade Pep that City without De Bruyne is like cream cheese without a bagel, Miles Davis without a trumpet, Roger Federer without his mild strangely bemused smile.
Everyone likes a public flogging followed by a dramatic death, particularly if the club concerned arouses so many complicated emotions in others. Those stories must now be put away. De Bruyne took the captain’s armband against Forest. His header led to the early first goal. His thunderous strike gave City their second. De Bruyne might have had a third. Death notices are premature.
There is the victory itself and the shape behind the victory. De Bruyne looked energized by playing, not tired. Pep looked tired, but City will come again, of that you can be sure. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after their 2-0 defeat at Anfield, they went on to be Liverpool’s fiercest rivals, after all? City could yet, it’s not impossible, win the league.
De Bruyn, in coming back from banishment, did something for his side. He galvanised them, which suggests to me that whatever the tiff, De Bruyne had his dressing-room allies. Erling Haaland looked radioactive. Ilkay Gündoğan looked twice the player he was against Liverpool.
Players play for the gaffer but they love each other. Resuscitated City had thrown off their very expensive crutches. They were suddenly marching to a different tune.
Coming back from knocking on death’s door might be spooky for some of City’s rivals. It might be spooky for Slot. And it isn’t as if Slot, with his vaguely sergeant-major-like air, only has spooks on one front to deal with.
There is the small matter of the ghost that loiters. The ghost that everybody loved. Not because he wants to, but because he is strongly associated with Liverpool and their recent success. The fans just can’t help themselves. Comparisons will be made.
So far, Slot’s engagement with the ghost has been fraternal. He has acknowledged the ghost, even spoken fondly of him, given the ghost his due. It was the ghost, remember, who in his last summer in charge, brought in Mac Allister, Gravenberch and Szoboszlai, perhaps in the foreknowledge that he was losing his lust for Premiership life and entering the spirit world.
At the moment Jurgen Klopp’s ghost is a friendly one, and Slot seems happy to acknowledge the ghost, talk to it even, and give the ghost it’s due. But the time will surely come when Slot might want to distance himself from the ghost of heavy metal football and hear a different lead guitar. Slot might be keen to not only put distance between Liverpool and Arsenal and Chelsea but to put distance between himself and the previous gaffer. Indications are that he’s already doing so.
He might also be keen to banish the ghost of history, for history tells a story, and that story tells that Liverpool have only won the league title once in 35 years. The ghost gaffer won the title in 2019, of course. But we have to go back to 1989/90, when Kenny Dalglish was manager, before we find Liverpool winning another league title. That’s a long time ago – far older than most of Slot’s young players.
Klopp bought these young players in the knowledge that they will get better. They are also young players who have not been chased before, not on a stage this big and watched and frightening.
Some like to set the pace but others point out that being chased can be debilitating. Having nothing in front of you and all behind you can arouse panic and second-guessing, particularly if you haven’t experienced being chased before. Again, the P-word. Slot must keep himself, others and the baleful glare of history, in proportion.
It is equally true that in other ways Slot is disassociating himself from the ghost. He is making his mark. Under him, Gravenberch has become a Rhodri-lite, a classic defensive midfielder. After being used as a shuttle to hare up and down the pitch under Klopp, Gravenberch is being used more like Patrick Vieira was used at Arsenal – as a kind of sweeper or hinge between the central defenders and the Liverpool midfield.
Luis Diaz, the Colombian, meanwhile, has become a classic middle-of-the pitch striker after being used on the left by Klopp. The side, as a result, has a different spine, starting with Coaimhin [Kwee-veen] Kelleher or Alisson Becker, moving through Van Dijk, through Gravenberch and up to Diaz.
Virgil, he of the sardonic smile, a man who seems to be both part of and rise above what he does, is crucial for Liverpool as we head into 2025. Van Dyk seems to rise above both literally and figuratively.
Against City he made a horrible nuisance of himself around the City goal, whether crosses were delivered by Mac Allister or Trent Alexander-Arnold. One of his headers hit the upright in the first half and he might have scored again in the first-half and once in the second.
Rising above is all very well, but Virgil is also rooted to the ground, bogged down in the issue of whether it is contractually permissible to talk to interested parties from January 1.
Virgil is 33. He knows this is. As he knows that his best future remains at Liverpool. Again, calm and proportion. The Dutch defender is unlikely to come this way again, being in contention for both the league and the Champions’ League in the same season. The next six months will ensure his status as one of the smartest defenders in the world.
And what of Mo Salah, he of the Lionel Messi-like left-foot? The consensus after the City win seemed to be that Salah was the true professional, putting contract negotiations aside while continuing to be his best self. Go Mo. You’re worth every penny.
Although, three days later, in Newcastle, Mo was as invisible as water in the desert. A quick whip around from the travelling fans wouldn’t have raised the train fare home if they’d refused to allow him on the team bus. Remember, Liverpool were 1-0 down at half-time against Newcastle. They didn’t look like champions elect. They didn’t look close to it. Slot clearly had a word.
So, we have a race on our hands, because we can’t forget Chelsea and Arsenal. Pep has been in races before, but he of the impertinent swinging arm won’t have been in races of this magnitude. He’s spent time pinching himself over the last few months, that’s for sure. But now he’s worrying about sleep and having sleepless nights. The jaunty swinger is in for the most exciting six months of his life.
And so are we. It’s not often that things fall apart so comprehensively so early in a season, although the advantage of losing your shit early is that there’s time to get it back later. Then again, against Liverpool at Anfield, City had a nervous breakdown. Nervous breakdowns take time to repair. City apparently have their ghosts too.
Going into the New Year and the Premiership race is the most exciting it’s been for years. What have we had so far? Manchester City, the contemporary juggernauts, have stumbled. Their coach is looking agitated. Their most quietly influential player was bustled to the ground by Arsenal’s Kai Havertz in an early match and subsequently did himself a terrible injury in the same match.
City’s other star player, the cussed Belgian, managed to suggest to the watching world that he was injured while, in actual fact, he was sulking. Now he’s back. And everyone feels better. All seems right with the world.
The men in red shirts who do not walk alone, who play in front of a stand named after Spion Kop outside of Ladysmith, a battle in the faraway Boer War, have it all to lose. But they have ghosts waiting in the wings. The ghost of history, for one, the ghost of their former manager, for another, a man who was so loved that it is difficult to imagine how anyone could be loved quite as much. It all adds to a pretty groovy story, doesn’t it?
Chelsea and Arsenal are there and thereabouts, too, ready to pounce if things go wrong. Slot – here’s a guess – is unlikely to allow himself the impertinent swing of a jaunty arm for much longer. He’s in for a grind. He needs Virgil and Mo and Trent, he of the roving football eye, to stay in tune with the songs Slot wants to sing in the most musical of cities.
The Spion Kop analogy might be appropriate here. Without going into too much historical detail, a phase of the Battle for the Kop was fought in early morning fog, as the British mounted an unexpected frontal assault. The quiet words “fix bayonets” ribboned down the British line. Despite having lookouts and sentries, the sleeping Boers were taken by complete surprise. Vicious fighting at close quarters and hand-to-hand combat ensued. We’re in for five or six months of hand-to-hand combat, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The Slot machine is tossing out the wins but does he have the wallet to do so indefinitely. All of us will thoroughly enjoy finding out.