In the buildup to the match against 130 Charges FC I and many others were quick to point out how ridiculous it was that three of the main people that the Professional Game Match Officials Limited had appointed to oversee event were from Manchester or the local area. Countless people responded that they were professionals and would do their job without thought of where they were born, nor how Mancunians are brought up to hate Scousers and vice-versa. In some ways, those people were absolutely right. Chris Kavanagh, from Ashton-under-Lyne, gave us a penalty and Greater Manchester’s Paul Tierney could find no reason to overturn it, nor the goal that we scored. On the other hand, it isn’t always about the big decisions when it comes to people from Manchester acting in bad faith when referee Liverpool games. Mohamed Salah was kicked from pillar to post by the players from the club that is under investigation for financial misconduct, yet he was on the receiving end of just one free-kick, as far as I can recollect, with all other decisions going ignored.
Win is a win but I thought Greater Manchester’s Chris Kavanagh was awful today
— Andy Heaton (@andyheaton.bsky.social) 1 December 2024 at 20:43
It is those kinds of things that Liverpool suffer from the most when it comes to whichever men former South Yorkshire Police member Howard Webb appoints to officiate matches. Fouls are fouls and the men in the middle need to stop trying to ‘even the game out’ by blowing up every time an opposition player falls to the floor whilst refusing to give us free-kicks even when the likes of Salah’s boot comes off because he’s been stood on. The problem with refereeing in general in this country is that supporters aren’t willing to unite anywhere near enough to call it out. For everyone else, it doesn’t matter that we don’t get any of the big calls because LIVERPOOL=BAD will always win out. Thankfully, Pep Guardiola’s team was so poor and we were so good that no amount of small decisions consistently favouring them could have an impact on the outcome. We have also established such a lead over the chasing pack that hopefully we won’t be able to be impacted from such things moving forward. As a supporter, though, it winds me up and is made worse when I’m gaslit over it by Webb and other team’s fans.
Slot has Evolved What Klopp Left Behind
Jürgen Klopp will rightly be remembered as one of the best managers that the club has ever had. If he didn’t come along at a time when a state-owned club was seemingly bending the rules for its own benefit, he would’ve established a period of dominance for Liverpool during his time at the club. There might well be an extent to which he was Bill Shankly and Arne Slot is Bob Paisley. The Dutchman has stepped into his predecessor’s shoes so smoothly that you’d be forgiven for thinking that he was a manager with a wealth of Premier League experience. Instead, he was able to win the Eredivisie with his former club and a Dutch cup, but is otherwise relatively inexperienced. The result of that is that numerous people who really should no better were quick to be dismissive of what he has been doing at Liverpool. Countless excuses have been brought up to explain away what the Reds have done so far this season, from facing opposition teams without their key players through to not really having played anyone decent yet this season.
Arne Slot has Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola and Xabi Alonso,all conceding a goal.
There is a world in which we win a Premier League and European Cup double and some people will be saying we haven’t had to play anyone good. Even in a week when we defeated the defending Champions League winners and the defending Premier League winners, people have tried to play down the accomplishment. The good news is that none of those people are on Merseyside. Both players and supporters are more than aware of how Arne Slot has taken the genesis of Jürgen Klopp’s work and made tweaks. We are no longer a heavy metal football team, running around the pitch like men possessed; albeit that was exactly what Darwin Núñez decided to do. Instead the tweaks and changes that Slot has introduced have been enough to ensure that we’ve been able to dominate matches almost irrespective of who we’ve been playing and who has been playing for us. He has been able to get the squad feeling as though they’re all participating, so everyone who comes in looks as though they’re in good form. It’s been evolution, not revolution.
He is Owed More Respect
What Arne Slot has achieved so far at Anfield is nothing short of remarkable. In the period before the season got underway I was convinced that Liverpool could challenge for the title, given the fact that the nucleus of the squad that performed so well for the majority of last season was still at the club. Unlike many, I was not writing off the campaign and hoping that we could maybe get top four if we were lucky. I repeatedly stated that if a team were to finish above Arsenal then they’d win the title, which I still believe is true. I have to confess, though, that even in my wildest dreams I didn’t imagine that we’d be nine points clear of the Gunners and 11 away from 130 Charges FC. Nor did I think that we’d have seven clean sheets from 13 games in the Premier League. There are countless things that can happen between now and the end of the season, so I’m taking nothing for granted, but our underlying numbers are such that Liverpool supporters can be feeling very confident and very happy right now. That is largely down to what Arne Slot has done.
Just WOW.
They do say a Championship winning team is built on a solid defence.#LFC
— LFC Blog (@lfcblog.bsky.social) 2 December 2024 at 11:45
He is owed much more respect from certain quarters than he is being given. It isn’t just that he’s been able to set us up in a way that has made us much more defensively solid whilst also being able to score plenty of goals. It is that he is tactically astute and seems to know exactly what his team needs at any given moment. We seemed to play in two different ways against Guardiola’s side yesterday, pinning them back in the first-half and then inviting them on in the second. Regardless of what we did, though, we were dominant and the result was never in any doubt. Slot is an incredibly astute manager who knows how to get the best out of his players. Too many people in the media are far too willing to act as if it’s everyone else getting it wrong rather than him getting it right. The man himself doesn’t seem to mind, which is more than good enough for me, but I’m also annoyed that what the Reds are accomplishing is being played down when if it was Mikel Arteta who had Arsenal in this position those same people would be singing his praises.
