Composite image showing Arne Slot, Jurgen Klopp, Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley
For the second time in living memory, Liverpool appear to have built on a monumental reign so seamlessly that you can barely see the join
“You don’t play around with ideas that have proved to work,” said Bob Paisley, as he embarked on the seemingly impossible act of following Bill Shankly. “You just feed and water them.” Famously likening the transition to trying to steer the Queen Elizabeth through a force-10 gale, he felt compelled to spell out a steady-as-she-goes stewardship, conscious he could never hope to compete with his predecessor’s charisma.
A shrewd calculation, it turned out. For while there were doubts initially about his credentials to succeed the man who had lifted Liverpool from the Second Division to three league titles, the unassuming miner’s son from Hetton-le-Hole would confound the sceptics by stockpiling 20 honours in nine seasons.
Bob Paisley sits in the famous Anfield boot room with the league trophy in 1981
Bob Paisley won 20 honours in nine seasons
Trophy counts can make for incomplete comparisons. Shankly, of course, meant so much more to Liverpool than silverware: he was about passion and poetry, culture and community, a figure who could somehow combine the art of management with the aura of Muhammad Ali. He could even boast a connection with the Beatles, who sent him a good-luck telegram on the eve of the 1965 FA Cup final. Paisley, by contrast, was the understated soul in a flat cap, recognising that his credentials were not as a revolutionary but as the continuity candidate.
Bill Shankly at St George's Hall Plateau in Liverpool
Bill Shankly was, and still is, a hero to all Liverpool fans
Just five months into the sunlit reign of Arne Slot, there is a temptation to perceive the Dutchman as the Paisley to Jurgen Klopp’s Shankly. Where Klopp was defined by wild theatrics and a magnetic cult of personality, Slot’s distinction so far has been to develop Liverpool into a remorseless winning machine. Not that he ever forgets the foundations he was bequeathed. Straight after a rousing 2-0 victory over Real Madrid, he generously showed deference to Klopp. “If you start at a new club, you want to implement your playing style as fast as possible,” he said. “That was not that difficult, because the style is so similar to Jurgen’s.”
Arne Slot salutes Liverpool's supporters after victory over Real Madrid
Arne Slot has already earned the love and support of Liverpool fans
He has already inspired Anfield humblings of the champions of Spain and Germany. On Sunday, he can bring down the champions of England, too. Their ascents to the job might have taken place 50 years apart, but Slot and Paisley have in a sense forged parallel paths, making instant impacts in replacing their celebrated forebears. Slot, like Paisley, won five of his first six league games, since extending that run to 10 of 12. He became the first Liverpool manager since Paisley to win his first meeting with Manchester United. With each stride that he takes, the expectations grow steeper: where Paisley managed a runners-up finish in his maiden season, the sage of Bergentheim is mounting the type of surge to suggest far greater prizes await.
But here is where the two stories diverge. It was Paisley’s burden, at least at first, to labour in a giant shadow, with Shankly regretting retirement so bitterly that he would still take training as if he had never left. Tommy Smith, the centre-back whom Shankly described as not so much born as quarried, reflected: “In the end, Bob, purely for his own sanity, had to say to him: ‘Bill, you don’t work here any more. This is my team here, I’ve got things I want to do.’”
The only recent sighting of Klopp at Anfield, by contrast, has been at a Taylor Swift concert. Where Shankly could not bear to contemplate life without football, Klopp has shown himself quite capable of moving on. “Don’t worry about me,” he said on a day out at the Paralympics in Paris. “I can fill my time easily.”
Jurgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool, runs to the Kop to celebrate
Jurgen Klopp left Liverpool with a bang, but has since stayed away
With Klopp now ensconced in a more corporate role as Red Bull’s ‘head of global soccer’, Slot has been left to forge his own path. And he has done so to dazzling effect. True, it is only November, but a return of 17 wins in 19 offers testament to his quiet alchemy. The significance of the result against Real is impossible to overstate, with the team Klopp failed to beat in six tries brought to heel at the first time of asking.
In gratitude, Liverpool supporters chant Slot’s name with gusto. That was a privilege Paisley struggled to earn: indeed, when he returned from Rome in 1977 bearing the European Cup, the refrain heard across St George’s Plateau was “Shankly”.
Bill Shankly poses with his coaching staff, known as 'Liverpool Boot Room', Bob Paisley, Ronnie Moran, Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett
Paisley (second left) had the unenviable task of emerging from the shadow of Shankly (left)
While Slot is typically painted as Klopp’s antithesis, there is nothing dour or reticent about him. He simply lacks the same theatrics. To summon a mental image of Klopp is to picture a whirlwind of teeth and fist-pumps and splenetic outbursts about having to kick-off at 12.30pm on a Saturday. Slot has eschewed such amateur dramatics or rows with officialdom, making a point after the Real win of shaking the referee’s hand. He is as affable as any manager at this level can be, waxing lyrical about having his family over from the Netherlands for the game against Manchester City.
But there is a ruthlessness behind the bonhomie. Slot called out Jarell Quansah for his indolence against Ipswich, pointedly substituting him at half-time, and showed little hesitation in sending Stefan Bajcetic – once billed as the linchpin of Liverpool’s future – on loan to Salzburg. Paisley had the same qualities in his day: straight after winning a third European Cup in 1981, he phased out Ray Clemence and Terry McDermott in a bid to freshen up the squad. There is far to travel before Slot can even consider equivalent glories, but the sheer poise with which he has adapted to the pressure augurs well.
He is building on healthy foundations. A symbol of this was his first Liverpool press conference in July, held at the gleaming Kirkby training ground that did not even exist on Klopp’s arrival in 2015, with the German instead unveiled in front of a half-built Main Stand. He owes Klopp much, particularly when you see academy players such as Conor Bradley, Caoimhin Kelleher and Curtis Jones reaching such heights against Real. But crucially, Slot also shows a Paisley-esque refusal not to be intimidated by the scale of his task.
For the second time in living memory, Liverpool have built on a monumental reign so seamlessly you can barely see the join.
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