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Have Arne Slot's Liverpool quickly established themselves as title favourites?
There is a very real danger that Liverpool will win the Premier League title before anybody has noticed it happening.
- Published prior to Liverpool's 4-0 win over Leverkusen
At first Arne Slot’s winning streak was put down to a kind fixture list. Then, when it didn’t stop, it was put down to an afterglow of the Jurgen Klopp era, their quiet summer window hastily reappraised as a clever move by the Liverpool transfer committee.
Over the last few games the explanations have stopped entirely, and instead the consensus seems to be Liverpool are winning because their opponents just aren’t up to much.
Chelsea weren’t great in the 2-1 at Anfield. Arsenal were the story in the 2-2 draw at the Emirates. Brighton are just a bit chaotic and besides, Liverpool weren’t any good for the first 70 minutes.
Exactly when a strong start becomes a strong season, when we move from the optimism of act one to the grind of act two, when a collection of results that just sort of happened turns into a clearly defined arc is a grey area.
But it’s roughly around this time of year.
The relentless march of games following the November break is probably when people will start to take notice of what Slot is doing.
Then again, at this stage 12 months ago, when Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham were top with 24 points from a possible 26, the excitement around their title chances was palpable.
Why are Slot’s team not getting that kind of attention? What is it about Liverpool that fails to excite, that fails to conjure a story about them?
Perhaps it’s as simple as Slot being new and unknown.
Perhaps when you come straight after a media darling like Klopp – a magnet for drama and romance – it takes time for everyone to recalibrate and find something to grab onto.
The same thing happened to Antonio Conte in 2016/17 when, in a debut season at Chelsea that followed a blockbuster Jose Mourinho meltdown, nobody really knew what they were watching - until all of a sudden it was mid-December and Chelsea were top of the league on a 10-game winning streak.
People didn’t really believe Chelsea could win the title because that just isn’t how it works.
You can’t come to England and make it look that easy. You can’t just switch to a 3-4-3 formation, stick N’Golo Kante in the middle, and win every game.
It makes a mockery of the whole enterprise.
But he did, and perhaps Slot is doing the same, only substituting Conte’s 3-4-3 for a 4-2-3-1 (a less dramatic change but, moving from one holding midfielder to two, a sizeable one in controlling the chaos of Klopp football) and substituting Kante for Ryan Gravenberch.
And like Conte, Slot seems to benefit from a weakened field.
In 2016/17, the year after Leicester made the most of a super-club blackout, Chelsea’s only challengers were a Manchester City side in its transitional year under Pep Guardiola and Spurs, who finished on 86 points in their peak season under Mauricio Pochettino.
From a narrative standpoint, 2016/17 really should have been Spurs’ year.
In 2024/25 the romantic choice is Arsenal. It was surely their time, yet they’ve fallen apart without Martin Odegaard and look far too emotionally fragile to recover to win the title.
Meanwhile, Man City have been hit hard by the loss of Rodri and could be hit harder by a points deduction in the new year, leaving Liverpool - quietly, efficiently, and with the minimum of fuss – to ride out a year at the top.
Events on Saturday and Sunday certainly increased the likelihood of that outcome. Liverpool were the only team who started the weekend in the top six who actually managed to win, leaving them two points clear at the summit.
From here, their position looks strong.
Up next is a home game against Aston Villa, who’ve won just one of their last five and travel to Bruge for another exhausting Champions League game on Wednesday, then after the international break they travel to Southampton before hosting Manchester City on December 1.
That is surely the date Liverpool’s brilliant start will gain recognition.
Assuming two wins from the next two, Slot’s side could start the winter schedule with a victory to go at least five points – and probably more like seven – ahead of their only realistic challengers.
Until then it will be more of the same.
Slow and steady performance, simple wins; football so devoid of drama and tension that when they prepare for Man City in December neutrals won’t quite believe that victory against Guardiola would give Slot a decisive lead in the title race.
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