It would be fair and honest to say that I knew very little about Arend Martijn "Arne" Slot before his typically quiet and understated arrival as manager of Liverpool Football Club in June 2024 but in league with millions of Reds fans around the world I knew one thing with an absolute disquieting certainty: he had enormous, legendary shoes to fill. Being Liverpool manager is a pressure filled and mountainous task in and of itself, let alone following in the footprint left by Jürgen Klopp who conjured a magic trick so many of his contemporaries aspire to but so very few achieve: leaving a football club on his terms and with the goodwill and good cheer of everyone serenading his departure after 8 major trophies (including the Premier League and Champions League) in 9 seasons of almost unparalleled success. To say the 46 year old Dutchman from the picturesque canal town of Bergentheim had the hardest of acts to follow would be the grandest of all understatements and there was of course the added pressure of a local and world wide fan base mourning the loss of a man who walked on the water of the nearby River Mersey and what expectations could be made of the new manager? A top 4 finish and qualification for the Champions League perhaps? A strong showing in the cup competitions and hopefully a Wembley triumph? A raft of new signings in the summer and a winning blend of the old and the new ahead of a full tilt at the game’s major honours from season 2025-2026 onward?
To say that Arne Slot has over-achieved in his first season as Reds boss would be another grand understatement and the only word that seems fitting, and a word which has passed my lips on far too many occasions this season to admit to in polite society, is miraculous. Where expectation was high but tempered with a reasoned reality, only one summer signing was added to the squad he inherited from Klopp and by the fifth Premier League game of the season and a 3-0 home victory against a very impressive Bournemouth, I was already constantly referring to Slot’s assertion that he had “a team and individuals that are so special”. He clearly recognised that he’d been bequeathed a squad of seasoned winners intertwined with the promise of youth and a spine of a team in Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alexis Mac Allister and Mo Salah who are world class, generational, otherworldly footballers. 5 wins from 6 games in all competitions by the time of the Bournemouth game became a staggering 11 wins, 1 defeat and 1 drawn game by the end of October and a 2-2 draw with Arsenal and the only other team with pretensions to Manchester City’s Premier League crown. When Pep Guardiola’s team of seasonal Champions arrived on 1st December, the Mighty Reds had added a further 6 consecutive wins in all competitions and here, at almost the midway point of Arne Slot’s first season as Liverpool manager, his team, for it was now very definitely Arne Slot’s team, dispatched both the European Champions (Real Madrid) and Premier League Champions (Manchester City) with two 2-0 Anfield victories in the space of four utterly glorious days.
By the turn of the year into 2025 and, as I’ve been keen to reinforce throughout all of my after match reports, just 7 short months into his reign, Arne Slot’s Liverpool held an 8 point advantage at the top of the Premier League, were a perfect 6 wins from 6 in the Champions League and through to a League Cup Semi-Final showdown with Tottenham Hotspur on the back of a faintly ridiculous seasonal record of 23 wins, 3 draws and only a single Premier League defeat at home to Nottingham Forest on their record so far. 5 games in all competitions later came Brentford away and Darwin Núñez “the late, late London hero” and I needed no further convincing: Arne Slot’s Liverpool were going to win the Premier League.
An excerpt from the introduction to "Champions" and my third book on the Mighty Reds of Liverpool FC. 
