Luis Diaz celebrates scoring Liverpool’s first goal during the English Premier League match against Brentford. — AFP
IF these are still the getting-to-know-you stages for Liverpool’s supporters and Arne Slot, the early signs are they are going to get on just fine.
Two games, two wins and two clean sheets – no Liverpool manager has done that since Graeme Souness in April 1991 and, to put that in context, that was before the Premier League was even a thing.
Yes, there are still imperfections and yes, the coming days will be important for Liverpool if they do not want to emerge from the summer transfer window as the only club in England’s top division to not add a single recruit.
For a club with their ambitions, the need for reinforcements should not be obscured within the warm afterglow of starting the season with back-to-back victories.
Liverpool's Dutch manager Arne Slot shouts instructions to the players from the touchline during the English Premier League football match between Liverpool and Brentford at Anfield in Liverpool, north west England on August 25, 2024. (Photo by Darren Staples / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No video emulation. Social media in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No use in betting publications, games or single club/league/player publications. /
On the pitch, too, there will be greater challenges than Ipswich and Brentford, starting on Sunday with Manchester United at Old Trafford, where Slot will experience a very different reception.
Yet the mood inside Anfield could probably be judged by the soundtrack, late into their 2-0 victory against Brentford, when it was obvious to everyone that Slot’s first league match at Liverpool’s home stadium would be remembered as a happy occasion.
Juergen Klopp had come up with the relevant song – “Arne Slot, la la la la la” – when he took the microphone after his final match in charge last season and, as his farewell wish, asked the crowd to make sure his successor felt welcome. Ninety-eight days on, the Kop obliged.
Slot had spent three-quarters of the match with his hands in his pockets, radiating a different kind of energy altogether.
He has made it clear since taking the job that there will be none of the chest-beating or fist-pumping that the previous manager went for.
Diogo Jota (centre) celebrates after scoring against Ipswich. — AFP
Perhaps too much has been made of the differing body language, anyway. Yes, Liverpool’s fans loved Klopp’s passion.
More than anything, though, they just want to see a winning side that plays quick, incisive, entertaining football and has, at the heart of everything, a sense of togetherness. All that was delivered here.
“All the (former Liverpool) managers would tell you the same,” Slot said in the press conference afterwards of the crowd’s reception.
“Every manager who comes here feels the warmth of this club and the appreciation by the fans. The most important thing I have to do, as manager, is make sure we play in the style the fans want to see. That’s what we are trying.”
That felt like an important statement because Liverpool’s fans might have been forgiven for wondering whether the man who won a Dutch title with Feyenoord would try to impose a slower, more possession-based style on his new team.
On the evidence so far, that is not going to be the case.
Mohamed Salah scores the second goal against Brentford. — Reuters
Liverpool’s latest win was rooted in the kind of football their fans love to see – chasing down their opponents and playing with the speed, touch and directness that led to Luis Diaz’s opening goal, originating from a Brentford corner and a breakaway that started in the home team’s penalty area.
It was, in many ways, a classic of its type for the modern Liverpool. Not a great deal seems to have changed, just the identity of the man in the dugout.
Nor did it hugely matter that, as the crowd were serenading the new manager, Trent Alexander-Arnold was sitting on the bench wearing the expression of a man not in the mood to join in the love-in.
It was the second game in succession that Alexander-Arnold had been taken off early for Conor Bradley to slot into the rightback position.
The body language of Alexander-Arnold was such that Slot appeared briefly at his side to offer a few explanatory words.
“He didn’t look that happy,” the Dutchman told reporters afterwards.
“Trent came back from the national team (having played at Euro 2024). He had a few weeks off, then came back, and this was only his third game. We have to take care of him because we need him for the whole season, not just the first few games.”
At some point, it will cease being a ‘he’s not Klopp’ narrative. For now, though, Slot is quickly showing his new audience how he works and, above all, that he is very much The Boss.
He has made the switch of manager as seamless as anyone could realistically have hoped, right down to signing off his programme notes with “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.
In the process, he has achieved something that the four Liverpool managers directly before him could not do: win their first Premier League game at Anfield.
Klopp’s was a 1-1 draw against Southampton. For Brendan Rodgers, it was 2-2 against Manchester City. Kenny Dalglish’s second coming in the Anfield dugout began with a 2-2 draw against Everton.
Roy Hodgson? That was 1-1 against Arsenal in the first match of the 2010-11 season, featuring a red card for Joe Cole and the underlying sense of a crowd that was wholly unsure about their new manager.
It feels different with the latest head coach and that is not just because the fans behind his dugout held up a banner that welcomed Slot to Anfield with the words: “We’ve got your back, Arne.”
Perhaps he also noticed the banner that was unfurled before kick-off at the front of the Kop showing five managers – Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Dalglish and Klopp – who are regarded in these parts as Anfield royalty.
It is not easy to warrant a place on one of these banners (Gerard Houllier was left out despite winning five trophies during a six-month spell in 2001) but he can worry about that later.
First things first, the Slot era at Anfield has begun exactly as he would have wished. — The Athletic
