Liverpool won their 20th top flight title on Sunday.
Liverpool are Premier League champions. That certainty was confirmed in a game that felt inevitable in the same way that their coronation had throughout the season.
But where the 5-1 thrashing of Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday felt perfunctory, the post-game celebration was illuminating. Manager Arne Slot, stadium microphone in hand, whipped the fans into chants of, “JÜRGEN KLOPP!” It was a remarkable moment of tribute to his predecessor. (Before it was ruptured when his players accosted him with champagne bottles.)
The respect is mutual. Slot’s appointment hadn’t even been announced when Klopp chanted his name. It is an unprecedented dual set of moments. Far from feeling saccharine or forced, they are indicative of the continuity that Merseyside has thrived on.
Much of the media had predicted this would be a season of transition. The glorious near nine-year Klopp era was over; key talismen — Alexander Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk — were on the last year of their contracts and seemingly had one foot out the door.
And then the last nine months happened. The obvious question to pivot to is whether this was still Klopp’s team all along or Slot’s
A definitive answer misses the point of what has enabled this success. Liverpool, as an institution, has done superbly to preserve the intangible attributes that make any football club great. Call it mindset, mentality or consistency, this is a team that understands who it is and what it wants to achieve.
“Identity” is one of those pseudo-philosophical concepts that we throw around all too readily in the football world. Yet here it feels perfectly apt. What we have seen at Anfield is a homogeneous understanding of purpose. One that is not just in line with what we saw under Klopp but also with the history that is held dear. It is in tune with the notes of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
This weekend’s trip to Stamford Bridge will symbolically underscore the nature of their achievement. Chelsea’s luxurious starting XI will have the ostensible honour of applauding the new champions onto the pitch. Liverpool’s success represents everything they are not. They are a side that has lost sight of who they are, lured astray by myopic promises of the talent of the day.
It wasn’t always this way.
Former manager Jose Mourinho used to diminish Carlo Ancelotti’s achievements at Chelsea by claiming credit for assembling the squad.
“It is funny,” he once said. “You see the Chelsea team that played for the last eight years. I was only here for three and a half of them, but for eight years, it was my team.”
Amid the clear disrespect, there are outlines of truth that live in his argument. The mentality he demanded from his players became entrenched and lived on long after he left the dugout. That was made possible by a core of players who demanded the same values and ethics from those primed to replace them. The golden generation — led by John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba — left but their successors found a way to win, culminating in the unlikely 2021 Champions League triumph.
The problem came in when the club’s new executives decided to play fantasy football and effectively switched out the squad.
The old guard now patrol podcast studios like curmudgeonly oldtimers, bemoaning the youngsters who cheerfully take to Instagram to apologise for losses. (In their day, absolution could only ever be achieved on the pitch the following weekend.)
Klopp, who is more likely to be labelled a maniac than a megalomaniac, will never echo Mourinho’s rumblings. But he is undoubtedly the chief protagonist in the Liverpool story of the past decade. His constant presence had enabled the executives above him to plot a long-term vision.
Before him, Liverpool were renowned for disjoined spending — as profligate and nondirectional as a hapless spouse who has lost the shopping list. In the years since, you’d struggle to name a signing who has not meaningfully contributed to the mission.
Despite his aloof aesthetic, the German assembled an efficient unit befitting of his national stereotype. Every decision had a purpose.
Slot undoubtedly benefited from that foundation. But he could just have easily fumbled the pass.
One of football’s greatest parables is Brian Clough’s 44-day stint at Leeds United. He reportedly barged into the dressing room in 1974 and suggested that “you can all throw your medals in the bin because they were not won fairly”.
Slot did the opposite. He emphasised the team’s existing strengths, playing to them and deftly injecting his own personality when the situation called for it. That is evident in the level of performances he has got out of his players.
With four games to go, Salah is only four goals behind his highest tally of 32 in a Red shirt. It’s a remarkable haul for a prolific player supposedly past his prime years.
“It’s quite tough to be fair, to say one thing, but the tactics are quite different,” he said of Slot’s influence. “I told him, ‘Look, as long as you rest me defensively then I will provide offensively and then I will show you numbers,’ and I’m glad that I did. It was the manager’s idea but he listens a lot. I spoke to him and he got his idea and you can see the numbers.”
How easy it would have been for the players, too, to have been captured by the transition narrative. The defining feature of this title-winning campaign has been their ability to grind a result; to get the three points even on an off day. That only comes when you have a team fighting for their manager and their ideas — not those of him who came before.
The era of greatness has been preserved. With Liverpool now tied with Manchester United on 20 league titles, and poised to surpass them, it might well reach new, unthinkable heights.