While Liverpool fans may have had expectations and hopes for a top-four finish this season, Arne Slot is going for a title charge.
Despite the team being just 14 games into their season, Liverpool find themselves in a dream-like position and their direct rivals are already starting to crumble under the pressure of SlotBall.
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At first, we were written off because Jurgen Klopp had left, then when Slot won his opening few games it was the result of a new manager bounce, then we had only played easy teams so our form represented a false dawn, then Liverpool had played good teams but they were depleted, so Liverpool were yet put in a convincing performance.
Last weekend Liverpool were dealt the news that the Merseyside Derby was postponed because of safety concerns originating from Storm Darragh. It meant that Liverpool's rivals Manchester City and Arsenal were given the opportunity to eat into the Reds' lead and add further pressure to the rescheduled fixture.
However, under the weight of their own expectations, they both failed to take advantage of the situation gifted to them.
While Liverpool would have loved to have taken advantage of such a situation, getting the game over and done with, there were at least three massive positives to take from not playing with a weakened squad, and now that City and Arsenal have crumbled, the Reds can claim at least a small win without having played a game.
Pep's Manchester City crisis
After starting the season unbeaten until October 28, City's season quickly began to unravel.
They lost to Tottenham in the EFL Cup, followed by an inspired Bournemouth victory over the champions, led by Liverpool transfer target Milos Kerkez at left-back. They were battered 4-1 in one of Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim's final games in charge at Sporting, then they lost 2-1 to Brighton before their impressive Premier League home record was left in tatters by Tottenham's 4-0 dispatching of them at the Etihad.
From then, they collapsed from 3-0 up against Feyenoord to draw 3-3 and they comfortably lost 2-0 to Slot's Reds at Anfield.
Last week, Nottingham Forest visited the blue side of Manchester, and Pep Guardiola finally stopped the rot with a 3-0 win, however, that victory proved to be a false dawn, as Crystal Palace held them to a 2-2 draw on Saturday afternoon.
It means that their hopes of automatically qualifying for the last 16 of the Champions League are less likely and they sit in fourth place in the Premier League, having dropped points in seven of their opening 15 fixtures.
The absence of Ballon d'Or winner Rodri has been felt significantly and Mateo Kovacic's latest knock has left them without a defensive midfielder of note. While the side has been ravished with injuries, they have all come at different times, with players returning just in time for another's injury setback.
The league's leading goalscorer Erling Haaland - joint with Mohamed Salah on 13 goals - is receiving little to no service, Kyle Walker is showing his age considerably at right-back, and Guardiola has fully lost his composure - reacting to the Anfield crowd, scratching his face as his team collapses, and making little to no sense in his post-match interviews, much like Jose Mourinho used to do.
After City's latest result against Palace, Pep was left incensed but he decided against fully conceding his team's chances of defending the title, but if Liverpool's form continues, then the gap - which currently sits at eight points with a game in hand - is only going to increase.
Pep Guardiola Liverpool Man City
© IMAGO - Pep Guardiola Liverpool Man City
Arsenal's underperformance so far this season
At the beginning of the season, Arsenal were touted as the favourites to lift the Premier League and break their 21-year drought, after coming up short of City in both of the two previous seasons.
But they started the campaign out of form as well, dropping points to Brighton, Atalanta, City and Bournemouth in their first 11 games across all competitions.
While the loyal Gunners fans put this down to refereeing incompetence because they were shown three red cards, one in each of the Brighton, City and Bournemouth games, in reality, this was just a mixture of naive copium.
Martin Odegaard suffered an injury which largely wiped out Arsenal's open play creativity, but they were able to continue to win matches, despite further injury setbacks - although their list of absentees was very cleverly manipulated to suggest they were having a 'crisis', when in fact it was the first time in a few years that they had faced the sort of adversity most teams regularly have to deal with.
When they faced Liverpool at the Emirates on October 27, they had fewer injuries than Liverpool did, yet not a peep of an excuse came from those on Merseyside.
The game ended in a 2-2 draw, just the second time Slot had dropped points across all competitions, but nonetheless, it was a hard-fought result.
But this triggered a series of further dropped points for Arsenal in three of their next four games against Newcastle, Inter Milan and Chelsea.
Subsequently, Arsenal have picked up a little bit of form, coming in line with Odegaard's return from the sidelines, but just as their fans began to dream of a 20-game winning streak, they were caught out by Fulham in a 1-1 draw, a performance led by another one of Liverpool's transfer targets.
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Mikel Arteta
© IMAGO
Arteta's wilful ignorance of his side's inherent problems
Across the past few years, it is fair to claim that Arsenal have largely been a free-flowing attacking team, that has slowly begun to utilise the height of their defenders to both defend and attack set pieces.
Back in the day, we never knew the names of any team's backroom staff, never mind a set-piece coach.
However, when anyone were to read about or watch Arsenal you can get a certain vibe of cautiousness in their approach from time to time, playing not to concede rather than playing to outscore the opposition.
While this can be a credible approach, one that has almost definitely come from Arsenal's lack of trophy success in recent years despite constantly improving the performances of their team, it can result in some really dismal results on the pitch.
It is here where we are introduced to Nicolas Jover, the Gunners set-piece coach, who can be charged with a few different things.
One, in frustrating the entire league with his team's relentless quality in set-pieces such as corners and free kicks, because even if a team feels they've done enough to thwart Arsenal's attack, they can suddenly be behind the game in a matter of seconds, if you inadvertently give them a corner.
It was enough for them to dispatch Manchester United in midweek 2-0, with both goals coming from corners, but it came back to bite them against Fulham.
Once the Cottagers had got an early grip on the game, it took a header from William Saliba to return the match to parity, but while unable to find a second successful effort at goal, they dropped points, again, for the seventh time this season in the league.
So although a set-piece goal can get you out of a sticky situation, and it is a brilliant asset to have in your locker, any overreliance on it will result in dropped points eventually.
Despite creating 1.93 xg (expected goals) against Fulham, only 0.30 xg was from open play - stats per Fotmob.
Speaking to the press in his post-match interview, Mikel Arteta had this to say: "We should have scored from different ways because we had some big chances. In all the situations we had, the last pass, the last action wasn’t there to finalise the game, but this is the way, there’s not much more that you can do against an opposition like this here. In the end, you have to find a way to win the game.
“You can always do more, but we’ve done a lot, a lot against an opposition that a lot of teams suffer against. We did really well but one thing is deserving to win and the other fact is to win it."
While the Spanish coach will not outright say that they failed to create enough from open play, that is the reality, it happens time and time again, except this time, it made all the difference.
Arne Slot will not want to get carried away, his side only has a four-point lead over Chelsea in second place, with a game in hand, but considering Enzo Maresca's Chelsea are confident that they are not title challengers this season, Liverpool's main rivals are riddled with issues that don't likely to be fixed in the short turnaround between games this festive season.
If we're saying the target for this league is 90 points, Arsenal can only drop 8 more this season. City can only drop 6 more. We can drop 17. About as well positioned as we could have hoped to have been at this point.
— barry (@BackseatsmanLFC) December 8, 2024
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