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Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Liverpool’s next slate of matches should confirm for the skeptics if the hot early start is merely Fool’s Gold.
Liverpool entered this weekend of Premier League action atop the league table. It’s a feat, yes. And one that even the most optimistic folks would not have necessarily predicted. Which is what makes the current questions swirling around the club a bit curious.
The adage says that you can only beat the opponents before you. And on that prompt, Liverpool have been nearly perfect. That’s not hyperbole either: Liverpool have won 9/10 matches across all competitions in Arsen Slot’s first year as head coach. These circumstances are important because even allowing maximum appreciation for the quality of the squad that the Dutch coach inherited, you would again be starved for folks who would have confidently predicted that the Reds would have only the sole loss in the column.
That’s the rub for me. No one could have predicted that Slot’s transition and implementation of tactical differences could have been this well received. Before the season, most would have pointed at matches against Manchester United, Wolves, and Crystal Palace as well as a Champions League tilt against AC Milan - all away - as at the very least difficult matches. Liverpool have met those challenges.
It feels largely like moving the goalposts to enter this stretch of matches as some sort of “true” indicator of quality - for me, that’s already been answered. In Slot and with this collection of players, we have an elite group that looks set to come good on at least the pre-season objectives of a Top 4 finish and advancement out of initial rounds in the tournaments. That’s not nothing.
And while nothing’s quite accomplished yet, I’m not sure that what happens here is more significant than what’s come before. It may sound like an over emphasis on meaning, bordering on pedantic, but the truth of it is we know a lot about this squad right now. Things that are unlikely to change based on the results. Like that they still like to counter press. Or that the new roles allow for a bit more structure in midfield, ahead of the defense. And that this team has added stinginess while still managing to look productive, if a little more workmanlike in attack.
None of this is gonna go away with dropped points against opposition we might now think as better than what’s come before. We might learn what opponents have identified as exploitable ends or new ways to force the attack into designed blocks. But it won’t tell us something different from this truth: we have a very, very good team on Merseyside. One that’s put the league on notice.
