The Power and the Glory: How Arne Slot Guided Liverpool Football Club to the Promised Land

After scoring his 28th league goal of the season, Mohamed Salah races to the Kop and gestures for a fan to hand over their phone. The Egyptian King’s famous grin, beaming through the lens as hundreds on the Kop follow suite. Not even the referee knows what to do. A player taking a selfie during a professional football match? Had it ever been done before?

It was about as ridiculous as the numbers Salah reached in the 2024/2025 season. One that just about defied every odd at every turn, and one of the key reasons why Liverpool Football Club bagged their 20th English league title.

On January 26, 2024, when Jürgen Klopp announced that he was leaving Liverpool Football Club, instantly rival clubs revelled in the news. The end of the Klopp-era. The end the Merseyside club’s dominance since the German spearheaded a rebuild that once again made the club an all-conquering force.

Despite Ryan Giggs’ bold declarations to contrary, all empires do fall. Not only Manchester United, but their cross-town rivals, Manchester City, could well be the next (or not) – their 2024/2025 season, blighted by an aging squad with too much football in their legs, as Pep Guardiola relied heavily on his tried and trusted that have done their own conquering. (The circumstances not dissimilar to Klopp’s 2022/2023 team.)

However, unlike Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, Klopp left Liverpool Football Club in a healthy position. Despite protestations from many, while not always making the right decisions, Fenway Sports Group have – on the whole – run the club with a certain degree of responsibility, and while slightly risk averse in recruitment during Klopp’s years, the Boston-based owners have overseen expansions to Anfield in the Main Stand and Anfield Road as well as a successful move from Melwood to the state-of-the-art AXA Training Centre in Kirby.

Back to that healthy position, and – to many people’s surprise – the 2023/2024 campaign saw Klopp’s men put up a strong title challenge. Already with a League Cup under their belt, while the team’s quest for glory in Klopp’s final season faded at the business end, the German composed a squad with a good mixture of youth and experience. Key new signings, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch were brought in alongside combative Japanese fan favourite Watanuru Endō for the combined fee of around £145 million (£25 million more than the cost of one Jude Bellingham). And with Cody Gakpo joining in the January transfer window of 2023 from PSV Eindhoven for £37.5 million, all were key in a new look Liverpool team.

But in the wake of Klopp’s announcement, who would steer this team into the future and take the mantle from the most iconic manager since Bill Shankly? FSG overload, Mike Gordon, was tasked with orchestrating the next manifestation of Liverpool Football Club, and it started by bringing back the former sporting director and the once dubbed transfer guru, Michael Edwards, now with a wider scope as CEO of football. Julian Ward was also brought back after a year off, now as technical director of football, while Pedro Marques, signed from Benifca, was drafted in as the director of football development.

The big decision was Edwards’ former job as sporting director, and while he was replaced temporarily by Ward then Jörg Schmadtke – the latter in a hybrid-like capacity to work alongside Klopp for transfers during the 2023/2024 campaign – two months after the Klopp’s announcement, Richard Hughes was appointment in the role.

Despite the former AFC Bournemouth technical director not officially commencing his role at the club until the summer of 2024, he and Edwards were key in identifying Klopp’s successor. The priority, making the transition from Klopp to the new manager a seamless one. A manager with similar tactical nous and playing principles in a bid to avoid falling into the same trap as so many clubs before them.

Of course, there were names. Xabi Alonso, Ruben Amorim and Paulo Fonseca were all floated by various sources. But like everything the club has done with Gordon at the helm, things were done discreetly, and despite months of speculation, it was late Friday afternoon on April 26 when news broke from trusted sources that Arne Slot was the lead (and only) candidate for the top job. On May 20, the club announced that Slot would take charge from June 1, not as manager but head coach – the first in the club’s history.

Little was known about Arend Martijn “Arne” Slot. Born in Bergentheim, Netherlands, he began his career as a player for PEC Zwolle, before retiring in 2012. Slot’s managerial career started at PEC Zwolle’s academy then as an assistant at Cambuur before taking over as co-head coach. In 2017, he made the step up as assistant at AZ Alkmaar before becoming their head coach in 2019, and after a two-year stint, he went on to become head coach of Feyenoord. His biggest managerial honours, leading the team to glory in the Eredivisie in 2022, followed by victory in the KNVB Cup in 2024.

While paling in comparison to Klopp’s decorated career (in fairness, most do), the two shared one thing: both were winners. From his first press conference as Liverpool Football Club head coach, Slot said, “I will do everything within my interest and power to lead the team in the best possible way.” From that day, his temperament and tone hasn’t changed. Always considered and concise, Slot’s personality, a hybridisation of Klopp’s razor-sharp wit and Rafael Benitez’s cerebral acumen and almost unhealthy attention to detail.

On the latter point, weekly preparation resulted in one of the key differences between Slot’s and Klopp’s teams; the former, holding daily team meetings to latter’s preferred weekly ones. It’s this level of detail that helped refine many of the tools at Slot’s disposal, and it was done in a no-frills manner. A polar-opposite to Klopp’s predecessor, Brendan Rodgers, who just days after a 2-2 Merseyside derby at Goodison Park in late October 2012, wooed journalists with his Shankly-like salt-and-pepper-shakers-around-the-table routine. Slot, a true believer that the best work is done in the shadows.

Fitness was another subtle change. Klopp’s famous lactate test, replaced by new fitness coach Ruben Peeters’ six-minute race test. A gruelling pre-season task that consisted of six minutes of full-steam-ahead running around the pitch with no breaks. With the team’s fitness and dietary regimes also tailored more towards gut health, these new initiatives may have been the catalyst in reducing injuries. Liverpool’s midfield three of Mac Allister, Szoboszlai and Gravenberch all charting over 3,400 minutes in all competitions, only surpassed by Salah (4,501) and Virgil van Dijk (4,437).

A player like Curtis Jones, who suffered fewer niggling injuries, had his most consistent campaign (over 2,400 minutes in all competitions), and proved to be someone who Slot regularly relied upon in multiple positions. While perhaps a maligned player amongst the fanbase, his role was one that every title winning team needs.

Another who had suffered from various soft tissue injuries during his Liverpool career, Ibrahima Konaté was integral alongside his centre-half partner, the captain colossus in Van Dijk – the pair, a bedrock in the centre of defence, and despite Konaté’s knee injury in the dying moments of the Champions League match against Real Madrid at Anfield in late November, for the first time, the Frenchman made over 40 appearances in a season (42).

With Klopp’s bristling, blood and thunder heavy-metal football being tempered by Slot’s principles of slower build-up play within the paradigm of pragmatism (possession, everything), the nucleus remained: a team that possessed killer instinct and backbone. A Klopp assembled and nurtured resilience solidified by connectivity and comradery through the playing group.

And while many were quick to part with lazy sentiments that Slot inherited a strong squad and that the 2024/2025 season was a “weak league” based on no evidence other than petty banter over the Internet, Slot – alongside assistants, Sipke Hulshoff, and the former Everton defender John Heitinga – made several other notable adjustments which saw the coaching staff get the absolute best out of their mostly inherited squad. Slot’s only signing, the Italian forward, Frederico Chiesa, bought from Juventus at the cut price of £12.5 million. On the basis of his first season (which included just over 100 minutes of Premier League football), it was a signing that felt more like Hughes and Edwards transfer hubris than anything else.  

In fairness to Chiesa, he was brought in to reduce the pressure on Salah, however the Egyptian’s performance was the vital pillar in the Arne Slot fortress, which went from a team of top four hopefuls and would-be title challengers to emphatic title winners. With the ink from his contract extension now dry, the protracted negotiations didn’t thwart the Egyptian’s productivity; if anything (despite his age), week-by-week Salah’s performances increased his value. Every week. Another record tumbled, as Salah’s name crept up the many lists it adorns.

Always scoring. Always assisting. Arguably, it was Salah’s best season at the club where he carried the team on his shoulders and showed them the way in the same talismanic fashion as Steven Gerrard. A player for the big occasion, and that’s the thing. Salah is barely in the same conversations as the best who have played for the club. Quite simply, he should be, and if there was any doubt, then on the back of the 2024/ 2025 season, it has been dispelled.

Salah’s performance during Slot’s first season was the first example of the coach’s tactical refinements, reducing Salah’s defensive work to obtain the maximum output at the other end of the pitch. The likes of Szoboszlai and Mac Allister, tasked with covering space between Salah and right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold who – alongside left-back Andrew Robertson – were more cautiously deployed down the flanks instead of the auxiliary wingers both had often become under Klopp.

The major shift in the team was Ryan Gravenberch, who became the player few thought he could be. Hands down the Young Player of the Year, the Dutchman went from the periphery to one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. Having played limited minutes in his first season at the club before barely playing at all during his 12 months at Bayern Munich a year prior, Slot deployed Gravenberch in a deeper role and the results were game-changing. While perhaps not reaching the same consistent levels in the second half of the season, Gravenberch’s ability to play on the half-turn and majestically break the lines was something not even a prime-era Klopp team had at its disposal. Gravenberch, a unicorn of a player, possessing attributes few others in world football have, and at just 23 years of age, it’s frightening just how high his ceiling is.

Often maligned for style over substance, Slot eked out the absolute best from Luis Diaz. With 17 goals in all competitions, it was the Columbian’s most successful season for the club, hitting the ground running with five goals in his first four league matches, including a memorable double at Old Trafford in Liverpool’s early 3-0 season victory. While the tenacious forward has always been streaky in the goals / assists department, Diaz’s fallow periods didn’t prove to be detrimental thanks to Slot’s fellow countryman, Cody Gakpo.

After an excellent showing at the summer Euros, Gakpo had to wait for his chance, and when it came, he took it with both hands – to the point where Slot employed Diaz through the middle during the season’s most crucial periods to accommodate having both in the starting 11. It proved another masterstroke from Slot; the pair combining for 35 goals in all competitions. In his preferred position on the left, Gakpo was a constant threat with his elusive pace and control, and combined with Diaz, the pair’s numbers rivalled their predecessor, Sadio Mane.

It wasn’t strictly all about the numbers, though. Playing farther up the pitch in a number 10 role and spearheading the front four press (the most noticeable change in comparison with Klopp’s defensive set-up), Dominik Szoboszlai was another strong thread in the patchwork that formed Slot’s first season.

Szoboszlai’s pace and energy, relentless from start to finish, narrowing passing lanes and dragging defenders into channels that opened space for Salah, Diaz and Gakpo to flourish in front of goal. The Hungarian chipped in with a few of his own, too, getting on the scoresheet during the team’s most important week of the season, firstly away to Manchester City in a 2-0 victory, then at home to Newcastle 72 hours later (another 2-0 win). A player that is arguably rated higher by the manager than large parts of the fanbase, Szoboszlai is one of those players noticed more when he isn’t playing.

The same can’t be said for Alexis Mac Allister. The most naturally gifted footballer in the team, the mercurial Argentinian World Cup winner was sublime both on and off the ball from the opening whistle of the season. His football IQ, something that simply can’t be coached, and alongside a silkiness not seen inside Anfield since the days of Xabi Alonso playing like a faux NFL quarterback, Mac Allister was the chief puller of strings. The brains beyond the operation, dictating the tempo like all great players do.

While these newer cogs in the Liverpool machine grabbed deserved headlines throughout the season, the old guard managed to pilfered some column inches of their own. Virgil van Dijk, was, well… Virgil van Dijk. He passed the ball, we watched him defend and, of course, we watched him score in what was one the most crucial goals with the match winner against West Ham in April. In that same game, Alisson Becker (another who doesn’t gain the plaudits he deserves, simply because he’s high performance levels have become the norm) produced his own match winning heroics, with two world class saves that spared the team from any nerves along the path that led to their 20th league crown.

And speaking of, on April 27, as the sun shone over Merseyside and the team romped to a 5-1 victory over Tottenham Hotspur while the world watched Mohamed Salah taking selfies with the Anfield faithful, 34 games in, and apparently Liverpool limped their way to the promised land. Accruing just two fewer points in their last 17 games in comparison with their first (42 in the first; 40 in the last), scoring the same amount of goals (40), conceding two less (17 in the first; 15 in the last), having more shots on goal in the last 17 games (316 compared to 275), facing fewer shots on goal (167 compared to 155) and keeping the same number of clean sheets (7), it really was quite the ‘limp’.

These numbers underline a consistency that Liverpool’s opponents simply couldn’t cope with, and as each week passed and Mikel Arteta rattled off another feeble excuse following his Arsenal team’s failed title bid (which actually was a limp), for the purists who don’t care for statistics, underlying numbers and the dreaded XG, there’s always the great kernel of truth, as put so succinctly by Jimmy Sirrel, “Only the result matters, everything else is gossip.”

With gossip, there are moments. Successful seasons are full of them. Like Connor Bradley’s thundering tackle on Kylian Mbappé during the above-noted Champions League match against Real Madrid. Like Caoimhin Kelleher’s penalty save from the same player in the same match. Like Darwin Núñez’s late heroics away to Brentford in early January – the moment where it felt like the first nail in the coffin to any other title challenger. Like that final one when Trent Alexander-Arnold scored the later winner at Leicester City. Like Wataru Endō’s late involvement to close out a match. It’s these moments that are quickly forgotten in the new world landscape. One that is too fast paced, designed to suffocate emotion and what it feels like to be truly happy in the moment. Because that’s what sport is all about.

Liverpool Football Club are no longer the stepping stone club they were before the Jürgen Klopp-era. And while Alexander-Arnold is off to pastures anew, in the more recent times, few have gone on to eclipse their career in red. Aside from the right back’s departure, players like Salah, Van Dijk and Becker – among the very best there will ever be – their longevity in a red shirt is something that only a decade ago would never have been entertained by anyone. Those “possibilities” that Rafael Benitez once spoke of now glorious realities. These are the results of the foundations built by Klopp, with the genuine possibility of them being maintained and bettered by Arne Slot. More moments. Because that’s what Liverpool Football Club is built on, and the 2024/2025 season was yet another.