From a Liverpool perspective, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal online fanbase have been endlessly entertaining this season. Of cousre, there was the “over my dead body” comment, when it was already clear that the league was already lost. But the most entertaining thing has been the unending litany of excuses coming from the top-down.
Injuries, schedule, strength of the league, total points tally, you name it, and Arteta has probably used it as an excuse at some point this campain.
A few weeks ago Arteta tried (and failed) to take the shine off of Liverpool’s title win by disparaging the number of points needed for The Reds to win the league. It was a wild comment considering a) Liverpool had things wrapped up with 4 full matches to go, and b) that actually makes the second-placed team, i.e. Arsenal, look worse by comparison.
Now, Slot took a break from partying in Ibiza to have a laugh at Arteta.
“All these excuses you could give to Liverpool... with us maybe not spending... or not bringing new players in, or taking over from someone. All these things are excuses for teams that don’t win the league,” Slot said in an interview.
“It’s nice that if you have all these excuses, that you don’t have to use them, but you still just won it. I did it now in two different leagues and in two different ways. Everybody has the right to have his own opinion.
“In a season that’s so long, then normally the best team wins the league. You can reach a final with good luck, and you can never win a league with only having a lot of luck. Maybe we were a bit lucky that City had - for the first time in five years - a difficult period.
“But we were also part of that difficult period, because we beat them at home \[when\] they had already lost a few... and we didn’t have one, and that’s what you need when you want to win a league like this. You cannot have a longer period of games where you drop points.”
The reason Liverpool won the league is because they were the most consistent team from start to finish. Or, rather, start until the league was wrapped up. Hangover FC kicks off again tomorrow against Still Drunk FC.
And while Slot didn’t say this, I will: it takes some nerve to lecture Liverpool, a team that broke 90 points 3 times in the last 6 years with just one title to show for it, about what points haul a Premier League champion should have.
Anyway, Mikel, good luck matching the Bufflo Bills’ record of consecutive second-placed finishes next campaign. Make sure you spend a lot of time this summer thinking of fresh excuses so we can all have a laugh again next year.