You could say he has slotted in just fine. Arne Slot didn’t get the memo that it’s supposed to be a near-impossible job to follow a club great as a manager.
Take David Moyes after replacing Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. Moyes lasted 10 months. Or Unai Emery after replacing Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. Emery lasted an uncomfortable 18 months.
These are very early days, but Slot has barely put a foot wrong since succeeding Juergen Klopp as Liverpool manager following the popular German’s nearly nine years in the dugout.
Klopp forged such a connection with the port city and its football-mad people that he was compared with Bill Shankly, the club’s most legendary manager.
Maybe it’s because, at the moment, Slot’s Liverpool don’t look too different to Klopp’s team. Two Premier League matches. Two wins. Two clean sheets.
There was even a convincing win over Manchester United in a pre-season game in the United States, which is never a bad thing when it comes to getting fans of the Reds onside.
There are bigger challenges to come, of course. Starting on Sunday when Liverpool play United for real, this time in the league at Old Trafford in what is historically the biggest match in English football between the country’s two most successful teams.
While United opted to stick with their manager, Erik ten Hag, despite a woeful eighth-place last season, Liverpool’s hand was forced by Klopp’s decision to step down after a tenure that included a Premier League and a Champions League title.
Slot was regarded as a natural successor because of his style of play which, while not as intense and suffocating, is still very attacking and high-energy like Klopp’s.
Indeed, Richard Hughes, Liverpool’s new sporting director who identified Slot as Klopp’s replacement, said during the summer that the Dutchman’s coaching philosophy “lends really well with the kind of squad we have, the supporters and the football club as a whole”.
Hence why, to the frustration of some Liverpool fans, the club has felt it necessary to sign only two players in the first transfer window of the new era. Goalkeeper and Georgia international Giorgi Mamardashvili is back on loan to the team from which he was bought.
Italy winger Federico Chiesa was roped in from Juventus on Thursday.
In short, Slot feels it’s tough to improve on what he has and will go about making only tweaks here and there to put his stamp on the lineup in its bid to challenge Manchester City and Arsenal for the Premier League title.
Take this stat from Sunday’s 2-0 win at Brentford: Liverpool completed 92 per cent of their passes, which is the team’s highest on record (since 2003-04) in a Premier League game.
That fits with a comment made in pre-season by Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones, who said the aim now is to “have all the ball and completely kill a team”.
Initially, it feels like there’s less chaos, and more control, in Slot’s team. However, look at the goals scored against Brentford and they still bore the imprints of the Klopp era.
There was the rapid counterattack, launched after clearing a Brentford corner, that was finished off by Luis Diaz, and a strike by Mohamed Salah after the ball was won back high up the field by heavy pressing.
For the moment, the results are coming because the same players are doing the same things they did under Klopp.
