This Is How Liverpool Won The Premier League

Last summer, when Liverpool said goodbye to manager Jurgen Klopp, the inevitable question was always going to hang over the football club like a bad smell

Was Arna Slott the right man to replace him? Well, now barely 10 months later, we have our answer

I'm Matt from 442 and this is how Liverpool won the Premier League

I don't think maybe scepticism, but definitely like the unknown factor. That's Matt Ladson, co-founder and editor of This Is Anfield

and stating the obvious here, a massive Liverpool fan. His in-depth knowledge of Liverpool means he's the perfect person

to take us through the club's title-winning season, all the way from his first thoughts on Arnaz Slott

Obviously, there's that worry of Dutch managers have not particularly had a strong record in the Premier League

Slott's the first Dutch manager to win the league. There's always that fear of, are we going to struggle

United did after Ferguson, like Arsenal did after Wenger. But then on the other side

like you heard a lot about Schlott and what he was about and there was this hope that he would be

like the Paisley to Shankly. Unknown aside, Schlott was bringing his tactical acumen to the

table as seen in his swashbuckling style of play that saw Feyenoord win the 2023 Eredivisie title

and the 2024 Dutch Cup. It wasn't necessarily Jurgen Klopp's football, but it didn't need to be

The whole sort of basketball end-to-end approach was something that Schlott was keen for him to get away from

And I think Kirst Jones mentioned that the midfielders were often felt as though they were just running back and forth

and not too much else than being on the ball. So the approach was even very, very clear that it was going to be different in pre-season

And one of the big things was always due to Jürgen's style and the intensity

not just in playing style but in training as well and the approach to all that side you know we did

burn out and we did have a lot of injuries and then obviously opening game Ipswich we learned a

little bit about Schlott's approach to actually getting the result and not being afraid to make

the more difficult decisions so obviously taking off John Alakonza after 45 minutes bringing on and making some really good adaptations and I felt like during that first you know couple of months three months that our record in the first half of games was really not that great

But the second half we were absolutely superb and it always felt as though it was almost, the first half was like a sort of rehearsal to see how the opponents were setting up and then at half time you'd make the adjustments and win the game

For those sceptical early on or believing Slott had just hit a lucky new manager bounce

the early season form lay down a marker that this was something more. Liverpool meant business

Winning 3-0 at Old Trafford in your third game of the season is always a nice way to start your Liverpool career

Now obviously we know that United are pretty awful and could have been in a relegation dogfight if they were three

were even worse, but it's still a 3-0 win at Old Trafford, so that was a nice early one

to get under the belt. This Liverpool machine was well-oiled for sure, but along with this, it also helped that Mo

Salah had an all-timer of a season, breaking records and finding the back of the net left

right and centre. You could argue that the Egyptian putting pen to paper on a new two-year deal was one

of the biggest moments of their campaign, but what exactly was the secret sauce behind

his phenomenal statistics? I think that the change in how the right side is set up, Trent had much more license to kind of go inside or higher up the pitch under Jürgen, which left Liverpool quite open on that right hand side

But with having a more stable right full back, whether that's been Trent or Conor Bradley, has allowed Salah maybe to do a little bit less of that running back and forwards

And again, the transitional nature of the whole team isn't there. but I think it's also not necessarily just down to the manager but we need to give credit to Salah

himself and you know he's a player who absolutely dedicates himself to his profession you know he's

got a cryotherapy chamber in his own house and he's in the sauna and he's cold plunging and you

know he eats exceptionally heavily you know he doesn't drink alcohol he just is a family man you

and he's got a burning desire because of what happened at Chelsea the first time

That pushes him on even to this day I still to this day insist that Mo Salah is the most underrated player that ever played in the Premier League Maybe this season will go somewhat of a way to actually people realising just how good he is

Now you'd think, like a club with Liverpool, millions of fans around the world, media coverage

on every kick of the ball and more content online than you could ever watch, that nobody

would really go unsung or unnoticed in the squad. Well, it turns out there are one or

two that may just have missed the radar. The unsung hero for me, in terms of who's your player of the year beyond Salah, Van Dijk

Alexis McAllister has been the one that has just been an absolute figure of consistency

He's probably helped out Gravenberg, so everybody has noticed, oh Gravenberg's done absolutely

superbly as a six, but I think by having McAllister alongside him has made Gravenberg

as good as he's been in terms of exceeding those expectations. McAllister played as a holder quite a lot last year on the clock

so he knows the role. His role now has been a little bit more fluid

and he's been the one that's held the midfield together. McAllister's quality on the ball

and a future probable vice-captain for Liverpool, I think a lot of supporters would see that

This season, though, hasn't exactly been happy times and good vibes throughout

In fact, on paper, you could argue that Liverpool should have had more

An early FA Cup exit to Plymouth was the definite low point, with a Carabao Cup final defeat to Newcastle and a European exit at the hands of PSG

Not exactly a shock to the footballing world, but still occasions in which Liverpool are used to being involved in

and ones where they'd expect more. Bouncing back is what good teams do

and within that tough period of crashing out of the cup competitions, there was light at the end of the Premier League tunnel

a tunnel that led to the hallowed turf of the Brentford Community Stadium

The big one where it was like, OK, we are 100% winning this now

was the Brentford away game. Obviously, nil-nil going into literally the 90th minute

and then Darwin Nunes scores two goals in stoppage time, which is hard to believe now

But that was the one where it's like, OK, we've got that. There was a moment in the last title season where Sadio Mane scores an injury time winner winner away to Aston Villa I think that was the equivalent moment this season

Nunez scoring those two goals at Brentford and pretty wild celebrations. That was the moment where I think we knew this is happening

So now having won the title at Anfield and with their second Premier League title in the bag

all thoughts turn to the future. A future that will, from next season, likely be without Trent Alexander-Arnold

After nine years in the first team and having won everything there is to win, it looks like he'll follow Klopp out of the Anfield doors

and down a fairly well-known path from Liverpool to Real Madrid, following in the footsteps of Steve McManaman, Xavi Alonso and Michael Owen, among others

Look, I get it from Trent's personal perspective. He's won it all at Liverpool and he's got an opportunity to go and experience something new and different in life

And you only get one life, you've got to live it. however the idea that fans should be thanking him and you know saying off you go and have a nice

time is just it's not how football works is it we all know that he knows that he's not daft enough

to think it should be any other way and you know we appreciate everything he's done for the football

club but I'm not going to be blessing him for for leaving that's for sure and there's no bitterness

bitterness there per se but once you make that decision to leave Liverpool Football Club then

that's your decision. It's not like the club have sold you. So it is what it is. So if last

summer's question was can Arnaz Slott replace Klopp, this summer is surely can

Slott do it again? And are Liverpool on the cusp of another successful

era? Hopefully it goes on in a better vein than Klopp's did because

Klopp's era was fantastic but he started from a pretty difficult situation

Arnaz Slott has come in and inherited a very strong squad, a very strong football club off the pit

and won with basically no new signings the title and it goes back to that whole hope

that he is the Paisley to the Shankly so yeah this could and hopefully is the start of a very strong

area for Liverpool Football Club. So that is the Premier League title sewn up for this season can

Slott do it again next year or is there going to be another competitor? Leave your comments down

below like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one. God help the rest of the league when we

get a proper reel number nine