YOU know the most impressive thing Arne Slot has done since taking over at Liverpool? Nothing.
And the best way to keep that fantastic start at Anfield rolling along? Carry on doing exactly the same.
Arne Slot’s start as Liverpool manager has been impressive[/caption]
If you think it’s a strange thing to say about someone who’s won six of his seven league games, I’m not suggesting Slot’s sitting in his office with his feet up.
What I am saying is he’s been smart enough to realise there was no reason to make any big changes — and honest enough to admit it.
The minute Liverpool won their first two or three games, everyone was into him about what he was doing on the training ground and how he was different from Jurgen Klopp.
But Slot was dead honest. There was no secret plan, he didn’t arrive with big ideas of how he’d fix this or that. If it’s not broken, why should he?
Instead he was straight up. It was about having a fantastic group of players, with great partnerships, who’d been together for a long time.
No bulls**t like you hear from lots of managers who talk about what they’ve done, about high presses, changes they’ve made, like there is some sort of magic formula.
Well let me tell you, there isn’t. It’s not as though pressing is something new — just that back in the day they called it tackling!
Stuart Pearce or Tony Adams didn’t press, they tackled!
Slot knows he took over a great squad and is happy to admit as much — and fair play to him.
The more I hear about the Liverpool manager, the more I like. He comes across great.
He’s not gone around taking down pictures from the old days, like plenty do when they arrive.
There’s been no “that was the past, we’re doing it my way now”.
No boasting about his own success, no “I’ve won this or that”.
The plan has been just to carry on playing as they did under Klopp — and they’re doing it very well.
Slot knows he’s got great players — Virgil van Dijk at the back, Luis Diaz in the form of his life, a magnificent attack, class all over the park. That’s what wins things.
I don’t dispute Liverpool face their biggest test so far, against Chelsea this afternoon, after a pretty kind start against sides you’d expect them to beat.
And no doubt the next few weeks will tell us more, with Arsenal, Brighton and Aston Villa to come. But I’d be amazed if they’re not in the mix again this season.
For me Liverpool are one of three contenders and although you would have them as outsiders behind Manchester City and Arsenal, it wouldn’t be the biggest shock if they won the title.
And I certainly expect them to win today, for all that Enzo Maresca has inherited a fantastic squad as well.
Maresca was maybe a bit fortunate to get the Chelsea job on the back of one good season at Leicester, winning the promotion you’d expect with that bunch of players.
Like Liverpool, they’ve made a decent start — but nothing they shouldn’t have done — and like Liverpool they have a tough-looking run coming up.
I can’t have them as title- winners yet but they’re certainly entitled to think they’ll be challenging for the top four.
Anything less would be a big disappointment — and in my book, that’s what they’re in for at Anfield.
I fancy Liverpool and can’t see anything but a home win.
Just don’t expect to hear Slot making a song and dance about his part in it.
Chat a Cars-crash
THERE’S no doubt Thomas Tuchel has the world at his feet with such a huge pool of talent to pick from as national manager.
So let’s hope he gets it right.
As a proud Englishman, I certainly hope he makes a right good go of it.
Let’s face it, the bottom line is that’s what he will be judged on — if he can make us winners.
But while I have no problem with a foreign boss, the big disappointment is we can’t produce an Englishman to manage England. That’s the really scary thing.
I’ve no doubt Lee Carsley was first choice and, in my book, the job was his until we played so poorly against Greece.
That is what changed the plan.
Up to then Carsley was the one, for sure.
I know the FA claim Tuchel signed up two days before the game but I’m not buying that.
Yet it wasn’t losing the game where the real damage was done — anyone can get beaten.
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It was Carsley’s interview afterwards that did more damage than anything his team did on the pitch. It was very, very poor.
I looked at that and thought, ‘There’s no way you can manage England’.
Obviously I wasn’t the only one, either.
