How Arne Slot evolved Liverpool to become Anfield’s unlikely party-starter
A Premier League title that looked unlikely when Slot replaced Jurgen Klopp will be secured with a point against Tottenham on Sunday - and then the long-awaited Anfield celebrations really can begin
There will be a lot of Slots at Anfield on Sunday. The temptation is to assume that plans have been altered and flights suddenly booked because of the prospect of seeing Liverpool claim the title. Not so. “They will be here but that's not because it's such an important game,” said Arne Slot. Careful planning clearly runs in the family and he added: “In Holland it is a holiday at the moment, and it was one here last week. This game was already one from three, four, five months ago that a lot of people were going to come and were asking for tickets.”
The Slot family’s timing may be excellent. Certainly its most famous member’s seems to be. When Jurgen Klopp announced his departure, the possibility is that it would send Liverpool spiralling downwards. Instead his successor arrived in an off-year for Manchester City, when the points tally required to win the league was lower, when Klopp’s parting gift, Liverpool 2.0, were at the peak of their powers, the elder statesmen of Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah not too old, the 2023 signings benefiting from a year at the club.
Unlike Klopp, he will get to celebrate in a packed Anfield. For many a Liverpool supporter, Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace on Wednesday was a perfect result, allowing Slot’s side to clinch the title at Anfield, for the first time since 1990, with just a draw required and with opponents, in Tottenham, on course for their lowest league finish in the Dutchman’s lifetime.
“Like every fan around the world, we all watched when Liverpool won the league five years ago,” Slot said. “I think I know a bit about what it means for this club and the fans.” But only a bit.
Liverpool have a vast fanbase; the nature of the city means there is a greater intensity than, say, working in London. And yet Slot is isolated from many of those who will be singing his name on Sunday. He doesn’t see much of the supporters. “Not that much,” he explained. “Sometimes when I'm driving on the motorway, they come up next to you [waves his hand], right next to you for 500m or a kilometre. There aren't many interactions to be made because I go from training ground to my house, I open the gate and drive into my house.”
In a rare failure of planning, Slot was caught on camera at the shops on Thursday. Nothing too embarrassing, though: he was buying healthily. “When I wanted to have lunch, I thought, 's***, I don't have anything in my fridge’,” he explained. “So I needed to go to the supermarket. It was in and out, but there was someone who wanted to take photos of me. But I don't go outside that much, so there aren't many options to talk to me.”
He has other ways of occupying his time. Liverpool’s history could have been a burden for any new manager. Slot is conscious of it, but not a student of it. He is set to become the 10th Liverpool manager to win the league, after Tom Watson, David Ashworth, Matt McQueen, George Kay, Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish and Klopp. Only Fagan and Dalglish did so in their debut year in the dugout. The video footage Slot studies, however, are not the nostalgic glimpses into their past. “I don’t think that will help us or me to win the game of football on Sunday,” he said. “It was mainly watching Tottenham and that is I think a bit smarter than watching YouTube clips.”
There was, however, one element of Liverpool’s history that Slot noted upon his arrival. “The good thing is that most managers work here for a long time, so you have a lot of chances to win something,” he said. Not that he needed too many opportunities.
“If you walk through the doors here or at Anfield, you know this club has to win trophies,” he said. Which he will do with a consistency that has eluded the rest of the Premier League, a matter-of-fact calmness and a seamless adjustment to a new club, country and division. Klopp was Liverpool’s last title-winning manager and he was a revolutionary. Slot is an evolutionary. “You work with your players to create a playing style, which we already knew we wouldn't change too much,” he said.
This is the triumph of a practical, rational man. Although, Slot would argue, it isn’t: not yet, anyway. He has deflected title talk for weeks, forever downplaying the significance of Liverpool’s sizeable lead in the standings, arguing every result is difficulty. Now the Slot clan prepare to descend on Merseyside, courtesy of a holiday in the Netherlands coming at an opportune time for them to witness a party in Liverpool, the realist in the dugout had a predictable caveat. “But we still need a point,” he cautioned.
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