Are you ready, Arne? Slot’s Liverpool look sharp but huge Chelsea & Arsenal tests – not Man Utd thrashing – will show if Reds really can go all the way in Premier League title fight

Like a lot of Liverpool fans, Jason McAteer didn’t quite know what to make of last month’s rout of Manchester United. He obviously enjoyed the one-sided nature of the 3-0 victory, and it felt significant too.

After all, Liverpool had dominated three games against United last season and failed to win one, with former manager Jurgen Klopp subsequently admitting that the shock FA Cup quarter-final loss at Old Trafford felt like a “catastrophe” from which his players never really recovered. So, such a dominant defeat of United looked like a serious statement of intent by Slot’s Liverpool – but it was an easy win. Too easy, in fact.

“I thought it would have been a good test of Slot’s management and a good barometer to see where Liverpool were at that time of the season,” former Reds midfielder McAteer told Gambling Zone. “But I come away from the game and asked myself, ‘Are Liverpool really good or are Manchester United really bad?'”

It was arguably a bit of both. It’s certainly clear at this stage to everyone bar INEOS that Erik ten Hag’s team are terrible and in dire need of yet another new manager, while Liverpool are top of the Premier League table, having accumulated 18 points from a possible 21.

Slot has also overseen nine wins in his first 10 games in all competitions – making this the best start by any manager in Liverpool’s history. But are Liverpool “really good”? Or just beneficiaries of a seriously soft set of fixtures against substandard opposition? We’re about to find out…

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  The seamless transition

  Clearly, the seemingly effortless way in which Slot has slotted into his new surroundings shouldn’t be underestimated. Taking over a top club is a tough challenge in any circumstances. Succeeding a legend, though, makes it nigh on impossible. Just look at what replacing Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United did to David Moyes.

  So for Slot to have made a record-breaking start to his tenure after claiming the throne abdicated by Klopp is truly extraordinary. Liverpool obviously did their homework on Slot. They liked his tactics, his resourcefulness and his character. They felt he’d be a good fit for the club’s footballing philosophy. But not even Michael Edwards & Co. could have expected such a seamless transition.

  Slot hasn’t changed much, of course. A squad constructed by Klopp still bears many of the hallmarks of the German’s style of play, particularly in transition. But Slot has made some significant tweaks, including using Ryan Gravenberch as a six and telling Trent Alexander-Arnold to focus more on an orthodox right-back role than serving as an auxiliary midfielder.

  Liverpool’s game is also far more patient and composed this season. Possession is everything, used to not only play through opponents but control and contain them. Full-throttle football has given way to a slow and steady style of play and, as the results attest, it’s working wonderfully well so far.

  However, while the table doesn’t lie, it can sometimes mislead at this stage of the season.

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    ‘We still have things to prove’

    The Premier League fixture list was kind to Slot. It offered him a very winnable first batch of matches. And he’s acknowledged that after nearly each and every single win.

    “I know how good we are but we still have to prove things,” Slot said ahead of the 2-1 win over Wolves at the tail end of last month. “The fixtures that are coming after the international break are tougher fixtures than we have now.”

    There’s absolutely no disputing that claim. Liverpool may be the current league leaders but their six victories to date have all come against teams in the bottom half of the table, including three teams that have yet to win a single game so far this season (Ipswich, Wolves and Crystal Palace).

    Somewhat worryingly, they lost to the only top-half team they’ve faced, 10th-placed Nottingham Forest, and at home too. Granted, Liverpool had the lion’s share of possession during that game at Anfield and should have been ahead before Callum Hudson-Odoi struck with 18 minutes remaining – but even the most ardent of Reds will tell you that there was an air of inevitability about that goal. The hosts had run out of ideas by the midway point of the second half and looked increasingly likely to get caught on the counter-attack.

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    The defensive improvement

    Of course, Liverpool and Slot deserve immense credit for the way in which they responded to that setback, by beating AC Milan at San Siro three days later, which proved the catalyst for the current run of six consecutive wins in all competitions.

    In total, Slot’s Liverpool have scored 23 goals in all competitions and, even more significantly, conceded just four. The defensive improvement has been key to their impressive form. Liverpool were forced to play catch-up far too often last season, conceding the first goal in a staggering 16 games, and when their backline eventually fell apart, so too did their title challenge.

    Liverpool’s possession-orientated game, coupled with the use of a double pivot, have unquestionably eased the pressure on Virgil van Dijk & Co., with the Reds boasting the lowest expected goals against figure (5.2) in the league.

    However, questions persist. Can Slot’s side retain such solidity against far stronger opponents? Will Gravenberch continue to excel as a defensive midfielder? Can Ibrahima Konate stay fit and error-free? And how long before incessant contract talk becomes a distraction for not only Alexander-Arnold and Van Dijk but also star forward Mohamed Salah?

    We should get some answers soon enough.

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    ‘The best way to judge us is in four weeks’

    In a 20-day spell between now and November 9, Liverpool will face Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton and Aston Villa in the league, as well as Brighton again in the Carabao Cup, and both RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.

    “We have to judge ourselves as a team after these spell of games,” Slot told reporters on Friday. “Then we will know better how we act and how we perform after tough games in the league and the Champions League.

    “We know how difficult it is for us. We’ve seen that ourselves two years ago, and again last season. The only teams that have shown that they can perform in both the Champions League and the league in the last couple of seasons are City and Arsenal. So, the best way to judge us is in four weeks.”

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    Chelsea’s fearsome forward line

    The assessment starts on Sunday, when Liverpool host a Chelsea side that looks a very different animal to the ‘Billion-pound bottle-jobs’ Klopp’s kids beat in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley in February.

    There are still question marks over the make-up of Enzo Maresca’s squad and they will arrive at Anfield without two starting defenders in Marc Cucurella and Wesley Fofana, both of whom are suspended.

    However, the Blues are unbeaten in the league since losing to defending champions Manchester City on the opening weekend of the new season and this is not a team that struggles to create chances, particularly away from home when the likes of Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson are given more opportunities to counter-attack.

    It’s certainly no coincidence that Chelsea have won all three of their games on the road so far – or that only City have scored more goals in the league this season (17 to 16).

    “If you want to achieve something this season, you need to be defensively really stable, and we have been until now,” Slot said in his pre-game press conference. “But, again, we have to take the fixture list into account. Now we’re facing even better players, as Chelsea has a lot of great individuals that we have to try to control. And we have to do that as a team.

    “Chelsea is a young side, they’re in a good place at the moment looking at the quality they have and the way they play. They got a lot of criticism last season but they’re already a big threat for the top three or four. I’m looking forward to a very interesting game on Sunday.”

    And a seriously important one from Liverpool’s perspective.

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    Slot’s ‘season-defining period’

    The Chelsea game is key both in terms of maintaining the momentum built up during the first couple of months of the season but also ensuring that Liverpool go into their monumental meeting with Arsenal in a positive frame of mind.

    Mikel Arteta’s men have usurped the Reds as the principal threat to City’s dominance of the English game and, just like the champions, have yet to lose in the league. Consequently, the common consensus is that while Liverpool can compete, the title will once again come down to a straight shootout between Arsenal and City, just like last season.

    It’s an understandable take, too. It’s now clear what Slot is trying to do with Liverpool and the early signs are encouraging, but they remain something of an unknown quantity. They’ve yet to be truly tested.

    “When he comes up against Arsenal, how does he approach it?” McAteer wondered. “Will he give them too much respect, or does he go out and play the way he wants to play and ask questions of Arteta and Arsenal? We will see what he’s got then. That game will be a massive indicator of where we are this season and what we can achieve. He’s about to embark on a season-defining period with Liverpool.”

    Indeed, the trip to Old Trafford wasn’t a proper examination of Slot’s side – and he’s always been acutely aware of that himself. By the next international break, though, both he and we will know for sure whether the Reds are “really good” enough to fight for this season’s title.