It was May 19th last year, the final afternoon of the Premier League season, and, at the merchandise stalls on Walton Breck Road outside Anfield, they were selling scarves to capture the mood of the moment. They were red, naturally, and sported a declaration of gratitude and much else: “Thanks Jürgen, lad!”
There was a profile of Jürgen Klopp at one end of each scarf and an image of him fist-punching the supporters at the other. And, indeed, it caught the mood.
Klopp’s departure from Liverpool was the biggest story in English football in the second half of last season, although column inches on the meaning of Manchester City’s four-in-a-row came close to matching it.
Then there was the FA Cup final – Manchester United 2-1 City – and what that meant for Erik ten Hag.
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As we approach the first anniversaries of these occasions, it is an instructive gauge of Arne Slot’s work at Anfield that all feel so distant. Ten Hag has gone, the Man City of last spring have gone and, of course, Klopp is gone.
Klopp is not forgotten – a manager of such charisma will not be cut adrift in fan memory. But as Klopp’s team, managed by Slot, put together win after win from August to the start of December – when Liverpool eased past City at Anfield four days after doing the same to Real Madrid in the Champions League – Klopp’s name was less and less part of the conversation.
This was hardly deliberate Slot policy, more a welcome byproduct of his coaching. Klopp has been busy elsewhere, so has not been a physical presence on Anfield match days, which helps, but so do Slot’s 24 wins in 33 Premier League games. That’s six more than City, who are 18 points below Liverpool having played a game more. Eighteen.
For City this season is a dislocation, a stumble stimulated by Rodri’s September injury. Unforeseen and odd, City’s drop has everybody wondering about what happened and what comes next.
But, for Liverpool, the Slot succession story has been about a measured 46-year-old Dutchman and his ability to inherit a squad and a club situation in potential flux and remain calm while tweaking it and making it tick – just as Bob Paisley once did with Kevin Keegan’s car.
When Keegan had a persistent foot injury, Paisley questioned him repeatedly on his daily routines and eventually narrowed it down to Keegan’s new Ford Capri. Paisley stripped it back, made an alteration to a pedal and Keegan recovered.
Paisley made things tick at Anfield and while there was apprehension when he reluctantly succeeded Bill Shankly in 1974, everyone inside Anfield knew Paisley knew football and footballers. Moreover, to warp a key phrase from the TV series Succession, Paisley and his boot room backroom staff were serious football people.
Seriousness doesn’t get the publicity charisma does but Slot has redemonstrated its importance. We should be wary of approaching Slot-Paisley comparisons less than a year into Slot’s tenure, but there is a resemblance in terms of each man’s behaviour and the fact each followed leaders in Shankly and Klopp who understood theatre as well as – deeply – football.
In 1974 Paisley was the continuity candidate appointed from within. He turned into a phenomenon, winning 13 major trophies between 1976 and 1983 including six league titles and three European Cups. He was temperamentally mild and professionally ruthless. As Kenny Dalglish put it: “Bob Paisley is the greatest manager in the history of British football and I have no hesitation in saying that.”
But Paisley had to follow Shankly, a man who could not stay away from the training ground. “You opened a drawer and you felt Bill was there,” Paisley said of the difficulties of his particular succession. In the end Paisley had to ask Shankly to close the drawer and leave.
Slot has not had that issue with Klopp. The benefit of this can be seen over at Old Trafford. Every new United manager since 2013 has had to see television pictures of Alex Ferguson in the stand, sometimes smiling, but more often trying as hard as the rest of us to comprehend what the latest United had just served up. It is not Ferguson being deliberately inhibiting, but it’s there. And, as he himself has said, “Leaving is complicated.”
Arriving can be, too. Slot had never played or managed outside the Netherlands. He has left his family at home. Nothing was guaranteed. He could be floundering and there would be people saying they told us so.
But from the outside, rather from within like Paisley, Slot has brought the same quality of continuity. It is underrated. Football’s social media habitat might love change in the form of transfers – “announce Thiago!” – but managers know the value of reliability, of players who do it month upon month, season upon season.
Liverpool sold £50 million worth of talent last August but it was for Sepp van den Berg, Fábio Carvalho and Bobby Clark – prime selling. They brought in one player, Federico Chiesa, for £10 million and announced a deal for Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili this coming summer.
But they retained Virgil van Dijk, 33, and Mo Salah, 32. Age has withered neither (and Luka Modric has won three La Liga titles and three Champions Leagues since turning 32).
Thus Slot challenged the season with the Klopp squad that came third last season. On the opening day at a roused Portman Road, Slot replaced Jarell Quansah at half-time saying the defence had lost “too many duels”. There was a cool Paisleyite efficiency to Slot’s decision-making. Liverpool scored two in the second half.
He says his preferred style is not so different from Klopp’s and it has aided assimilation on the pitch. Yet even though they are the same players, quite early in the season Liverpool watchers began to note the difference. It was characterised as: control over chaos. Simplistic, perhaps, but it gives an impression of what Slot has brought.
As of Sunday, when we can expect a vivid Anfield to inspire and witness a trouncing of Tottenham, he will also bring the league title. It will be in Slot’s first season, a rare accomplishment, and it will be Liverpool’s 20th, equalling United’s tally. It’s a historic day.
United, meanwhile, will be at Bournemouth, 41 points behind Liverpool. Forty-one.
Come August we will all say, “United can’t be any worse”, and maybe they will improve. But it is Liverpool who are more likely to get to number 21 first. In February Slot said, “In the background we are definitely working on strengthening the squad in the summer.” This might be just the start of Arne Slot and Liverpool silver.
