Arne Slot’s preparations for a trip to the Emirates Stadium involved doing the maths. “If you look last season, it was seven points in between Arsenal and Liverpool,” he said. “The home game was 1-1, the away game Arsenal won. So if we could change the away result – which we can’t – to a win for Liverpool, that would have made a one-point difference between the two teams. So that’s why if you play your competitor, those games are vital.”
If it was another way of saying that Sunday’s visit to Arsenal is a six-pointer, it comes with a bigger context. Such season-defining games can decide the destination of trophies. And if Slot is not explicitly saying he is targeting the title, there is a subtext. He knows he is fortunate in his inheritance and often praises his predecessor. Yet it comes with his attempts to improve upon Jurgen Klopp’s recent record.
“If you look at the last two seasons, Arsenal are far ahead of us,” he said. Arsenal and Manchester City are the role models, at least in terms of results. Defeating them over 90 minutes may be the surest way to overcome them over nine months. Slot expects that a high points total will be required to win the league: it means he does not expect the contenders to drop too many against the rest of the league.
Liverpool did not beat the best last season. “I think it was three draws and one loss [against the top two],” he said. Klopp ended his rivalry with Pep Guardiola with that rarity, a winning record, but two draws with City served a purpose for the eventual champions. Slot realises that it is not as simple as just saying such games must be won, that victory can be the product of having a superior side, but the significance is clear nonetheless.
“Those are the hardest games to win, so you need a certain quality to win those games and if you have that quality then you can compete for the league,” Slot explained. “It is not as simple as, ‘If we win this one and this one and this one, we would have won the league,’ but there is a reason why you didn’t win it, because probably the other team is stronger than you.”
But, he feels, a 20-team division can come down to a mini-league of its leading lights. “It is so hard to beat the top five or six teams in an away game and the teams who are able to do this like City and Arsenal last season were, they have a very good chance to win the league,” Slot said. Even as City had the same record as Liverpool against the rest of the top three last season – three draws and one defeat in four – and did not win away against the eventual Champions League qualifiers, the key result as they retained the title was May’s 2-0 victory at Tottenham. An injury-time decider at Newcastle was also pivotal while they won at Old Trafford: in both the Premier League and the FA Cup, Liverpool led there and ended up rueing a missed opportunity.
Slot also harked back to Guardiola’s first Premier League title. “If you want to win the league you need many, many points, then once in a while you have to win an away game,” he said. “It is such a long time ago, but I can remember the first year when Pep was at City that they hardly won an away game [against the top teams], and the second year I remember the first one – Chelsea away – Kevin De Bruyne scored a solo goal and they won.” His memory did not betray him: De Bruyne’s spectacular strike in September 2017 followed a debut season in which Guardiola’s City won at Old Trafford but then took a lone point from their trips to Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. A year on, City took 100 points.
Go by the old big six – without Villa and Newcastle – and Liverpool finished fourth in the mini-league, 10 points behind Arsenal. That said, arguably it is now a big eight. “If you want to win this league, no you need to win a few of the five, six, seven very difficult away legs,” said Slot. “We talk about Newcastle, we talk about Chelsea, about Aston Villa, about Tottenham, about City, about United and about Arsenal.”
Last season, Liverpool only won one of those games, at St James’ Park. Slot has already equalled that total and so far has six points from a possible six against those seven sides, beating United away and Chelsea at home. And if there is a different precedent from Klopp’s first full season, 2016/17, when Liverpool went undefeated in big-six clashes and topped the mini-league, then it was often as energetic underdogs.
Now they are contenders. Circumstances may give them a greater chance. With William Saliba banned, Martin Odegaard injured and Bukayo Saka and Riccardo Calafiori doubts, it could be a fine time to play Arsenal. And as Slot plays the numbers game, victory would put Liverpool seven points ahead of Arsenal. And that, in turn, would be a swift role reversal from Klopp’s final league table.