Liverpool’s Slot Machine
Arne Slot hasn’t just inherited Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, he’s reimagined it.
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Arne Slot, as he seemingly always does, had a line ready.
“Don’t judge us after this game,” he said, speaking about Liverpool’s gritty, not-fully-convincing but certainly tenacious win over Chelsea in October — the kind that warranted a degree of scrutiny as much as it did a degree of satisfaction. “Judge us after the next seven.”
Well, seven matches later and Liverpool have done more than offer themselves up for judgement. They have written their own verdict. Top of the Premier League, top of the Champions League, in the quarter-finals of the League Cup. And if that wasn’t enough, they were on top of the world too; the Slot Machine spinning and spinning, delivering jackpot after jackpot.
At the beginning of Matchday 12, Liverpool sit comfortably at the summit in the league, five points ahead of Manchester City and nine points ahead of the deadlock of teams placed between third and sixth.
And the Reds have earned it in tremendous form with nine wins, one draw and one loss in 11 league matches and 15 wins in 17 matches in all competitions so far. They have scored 16 goals in this run of seven games, winning six and drawing just one. This was a run that saw them face Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton and Aston Villa in the league, RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, and Brighton again in the League Cup.
But it’s not just what they’re doing, it’s how they’re doing it. Slot hasn’t just inherited Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, he’s reimagined it.
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