As Jurgen Klopp departed Anfield last summer the big question was how could Arne Slot even try and replace such a successful figure? Now, we have our answer. With a firing Mo Salah and a prime Van Dijk - This is how Liverpool won the Premier League!
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00:00Last summer, when Liverpool said goodbye to manager Jurgen Klopp, the inevitable question was always going to hang over the football club like a bad smell.
00:08Was Arna Slott the right man to replace him?
00:10Well, now barely 10 months later, we have our answer.
00:13I'm Matt from 442 and this is how Liverpool won the Premier League.
00:20I don't think maybe scepticism, but definitely like the unknown factor.
00:24That's Matt Ladson, co-founder and editor of This Is Anfield and stating the obvious here,
00:29a massive Liverpool fan.
00:31His in-depth knowledge of Liverpool means he's the perfect person to take us through the club's title-winning season,
00:36all the way from his first thoughts on Arna Slott.
00:40Obviously, there's that worry of Dutch managers have not particularly had a strong record in the Premier League.
00:46Slott's the first Dutch manager to win the league.
00:50There's always that fear of, are we going to struggle like United did after Ferguson, like Arsenal did after Wenger.
00:57But then on the other side, like you heard a lot about Slott and what he was about and there was this hope that he would be like the Paisley to Shankly.
01:08Unknown aside, Slott was bringing his tactical acumen to the table, as seen in his swashbuckling style of play that saw Feyenoord win the 2023 Eredivisie title and the 2024 Dutch Cup.
01:20It wasn't necessarily Jurgen Klopp's football, but it didn't need to be.
01:24The whole sort of basketball end-to-end approach was something that Slott was keen for him to get away from.
01:30And I think Kirst Jones mentioned that the midfielders were often felt as though they were just running back and forth and not too much else than being on the ball.
01:39And so the approach was even very, very clear that it was going to be different in pre-season.
01:44And one of the big things was always, due to Jürgen's style and the intensity, not just in playing style, but in training as well, and the approach to all that side, we did burn out and we did have a lot of injuries.
01:59And then obviously opening game, Ipswich, we learned a little bit about Slott's approach to actually getting the result and not being afraid to make the more difficult decisions.
02:11So obviously taking off Jürgen Klonsa after 45 minutes, bringing on Kanate and making some really good adaptations.
02:18And I felt like during that first, you know, couple of months, three months, that our record in the first half of games was really not that great.
02:27But the second half, we were absolutely superb and it always felt as though it was almost, the first half was like a sort of rehearsal to see how the opponents were setting up.
02:37And then at halftime, you'd make the adjustments and win the game.
02:40For those sceptical early on or believing Slott had just hit a lucky new manager bounce, the early season form laid down a marker that this was something more.
02:48Liverpool meant business.
02:50You know, winning 3-0 Old Trafford in your third game of the season is always a nice way to sort of start your Liverpool career.
02:58Now, obviously we know that United are pretty awful and could have been in a relegation dogfight if the other three were even worse.
03:04But, you know, it's still a 3-0 win at Old Trafford.
03:07So that was a nice early one to get under the belt.
03:11This Liverpool machine was well oiled for sure.
03:14But along with this, it also helped that Mo Salah had an all-timer of a season,
03:18breaking records and finding the back of the net left, right and centre.
03:22You could argue that the Egyptian putting pen to paper on a new two-year deal was one of the biggest moments of their campaign.
03:28But what exactly was the secret sauce behind his phenomenal statistics?
03:32I think that the change in how the right side is set up,
03:37Trent had much more licence to kind of go inside or higher up the pitch under Jürgen,
03:43which left Liverpool quite open on that right-hand side.
03:45But we're having a more stable, bright full-back, whether that's been Trent or Conor Bradley,
03:50has allowed Salah, you know, maybe to do a little bit less of that running back and forwards.
03:55And again, the transitional nature of the whole team isn't there.
04:00But I think it's also not necessarily just down to the manager,
04:04but we need to give credit to Salah himself.
04:07You know, he's a player who absolutely dedicates himself to his profession.
04:12You know, he's got a cryotherapy chamber in his own house and he's in a sauna and he's cold plunging
04:18and, you know, eats exceptionally healthily.
04:22You know, he doesn't drink alcohol.
04:24He just is a family man, you know, and he's got a burning desire because of what happened at Chelsea the first time.
04:31That pushes him on even to this day.
04:33I still, to this day, insist that Mo Salah is the most underrated player that's ever played in the Premier League.
04:39You know, maybe this season will go somewhat of a way to, you know, actually people realising just how good he is.
04:47Now, you'd think like a club with Liverpool, millions of fans around the world,
04:50media coverage on every kick of the ball and more content online than you could ever watch,
04:55that nobody would really go unsung or unnoticed in the squad.
04:58Well, it turns out there are one or two that may just have missed the radar.
05:02You know, the unsung hero for me in terms of like, who's your player of the year beyond Salah, Van Dijk,
05:09and Alexis McAllister has been the one that has just been absolute figure of consistency.
05:15And he's probably helped out Gravenberg.
05:19So everybody has sort of noticed, oh, Gravenberg's done absolutely superbly as a six.
05:23But I think by having McAllister alongside him has made Gravenberg as good as he's been in terms of exceeding those expectations.
05:32McAllister played as the holder quite a lot last year on the clock.
05:36So he knows the role.
05:38His role now has been a little bit more fluid.
05:42And he's been the one that's held the midfielder together.
05:45McAllister's quality on the ball and, you know, a future probable vice-captain for Liverpool.
05:52I think a lot of supporters would see that.
05:54This season, though, hasn't exactly been happy times and good vibes throughout.
05:57In fact, on paper, you could argue that Liverpool should have had more.
06:01An early FA Cup exit to Plymouth was the definite low point,
06:04with a Carabao Cup final defeat to Newcastle and a European exit at the hands of PSG.
06:09Not exactly a shock to the footballing world,
06:11but still occasions in which Liverpool are used to being involved in and ones where they'd expect more.
06:16Bouncing back is what good teams do.
06:17And within that tough period of crashing out of the cup competitions,
06:20there was light at the end of the Premier League tunnel,
06:23a tunnel that led to the hallowed turf of the Brentford Community Stadium.
06:27The big one where it was like, OK, we are 100% winning this now was the Brentford away game.
06:35Obviously, 0-0 going into literally the 90th minute.
06:38And then Darwin Nunes scores two goals in stoppage time, which is hard to believe now.
06:44But that was the one where it's like, OK, we've got that.
06:48You know, there was a moment in the last title winning season where Sadio Mane scores an injury time winner away to Aston Villa.
06:58I think that was the equivalent moment this season.
07:01And, you know, Nunes scoring those two goals at Brentford and pretty wild celebrations.
07:06And that was the moment where I think we knew this is happening.
07:09So now having won the title at Anfield and with their second Premier League title in the bag,
07:13all thoughts turn to the future, a future that will, from next season, likely be without Trent Alexander-Arnold.
07:20After nine years in the first team and having won everything there is to win,
07:23it looks like he'll follow Klopp out of the Anfield doors and down a fairly well-known path from Liverpool to Real Madrid,
07:29following in the footsteps of Steve McManaman, Xavi Alonso and Michael Owen, among others.
07:34Look, I get it from Trent's personal perspective.
07:36He's won it all at Liverpool and he's got an opportunity to go and experience something new and different in life.
07:42And you only get one life, you've got to live it.
07:45However, the idea that fans should be thanking him and, you know, saying,
07:50off you go and have a nice time is just, it's not how football works, is it?
07:53We all know that.
07:54He knows that.
07:55He's not daft enough to think it should be any other way.
07:57And, you know, we appreciate everything he's done for the football club,
08:01but I'm not going to be blessing him for leaving, that's for sure.
08:06And there's no bitterness there per se.
08:09But once you make that decision to leave Liverpool Football Club, then that's your decision.
08:14You know, it's not like the club have sold you.
08:16And so it is what it is.
08:18So if last summer's question was, can Arnaz Slott replace Klopp,
08:21this summer is surely, can Slott do it again?
08:23And are Liverpool on the cusp of another successful era?
08:27Hopefully it goes on in a better vein than Klopp's did because, you know, Klopp's era was fantastic,
08:32but he started from a pretty difficult situation.
08:37Arnaz Slott has come in and inherited a very strong squad, a very strong football club off the pitch,
08:43one with basically no new signings, the title.
08:47And it goes back to that whole hope that he is the Paisley to the Shankly.
08:53So yeah, this could and hopefully is the start of a very strong area for Liverpool Football Club.
09:00So that is the Premier League title set up for this season.
09:02Can Slott do it again next year or is there going to be another competitor?
09:06Leave your comments down below, like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one.
09:09God help the rest of the league when we get a proper real number nine.