A number of Liverpool fans were understandably nervous as to what the future might hold for us following Jurgen Klopp’s retirement announcement ahead of the end of the 2023/24 campaign, and whilst few knew what to expect from new Dutch gaffer, Arne Slot, even those who were more optimistic will have now had those expectations thoroughly eclipsed.
The 46 year old former professional midfielder took absolutely no time at all to get comfortable in the Anfield dug out, and in very sensibly not making wholescale changes to Klopp’s style of play given it worked, Slot just subtly tweaked things that he felt would make us tighter at the back, and more offensive and dangerous at the other end of the pitch – and as we all know, those tweaks have proven to be perfect for us. For those fans who had a small flutter with sites like BetOlimp at the beginning of the season, they would be very pleased with themselves for taking the odds on this kind of start.
14 games into our Premier League campaign, we have picked up eleven wins and two draws and boast a goal difference of a top flight best 18. We naturally sit in top spot with 35 points and if we take advantage of our game in hand, we hold a seven point gap to the nearest chaser.
On a Champions League front, we boast a second best 12 goal difference, and again sit top of the revamped format pile with 18 points courtesy of six wins from six games. With two games left in the qualification stage of the tournament, whilst we should not take top spot for granted, it would be a complete travesty if we dropped into the Play Off group as we would miss out on automatic promotion through to the knockout stages by a point.
It is pretty difficult at this stage of the season, where we will very quickly be into the New Year and the second half of the campaign, to pick out small negatives or very obvious issues that could come back to bite us but that does not stop the media and striker Darwin Nunez continues to be a focal point for some given the 25 year old Uruguayan international is lacking a clinical edge right now.
Our £85 million signing back in 2022 has featured 19 times for Slot across all competitions so far this campaign, but he is struggling in front of goal and has only chipped in with three efforts so far, and he again struggled against Girona in our last European match, failing to take a number of chances he should have done better with.
There is no denying he should be far more prolific, and even Slot did not deny that as he met with the media following Tuesday’s action, clearly stating that it was not the goal return he wanted from a No 9 and it was not the goal return that Nunez had wanted at this stage of the year either – but that if you looked away from the goal charts, nobody could say that he has not been having a positive impact on our performances with his efforts, work rate, running and link up play.
In Slot’s mind he is having a good impact in a team that is free scoring and consistently winning, so he was not going to lose sleep over it, trusting that it will soon come good for the forward, adding that he would be far more concerned if the work rate and effort was not there to begin with.
Time will tell, as Nunez clearly is not as confident as he should be so he is probably forcing efforts, but right now it seems perfect man management from Slot who is yet to really put a foot wrong himself.
Image Source: unsplash.com
