We’re eleven games into the Premier League season, and Liverpool are quietly defying expectations, much to the surprise of the football world.
Sitting atop the table with a commanding five-point lead over second-place Manchester City, they’ve become only the sixth team in Premier League history to be five points clear after 11 games.
The first five all went on to lift the title - Liverpool among them in 2019-20, the last time any team held such a significant advantage at this stage.
Even the most die-hard Liverpool supporters couldn’t have predicted this after a summer of change, particularly with the departure of the legendary Jürgen Klopp after a remarkable nine-year tenure.
Under his leadership, the club claimed both the Champions League and Premier League titles.
The start of this season was supposed to mark a transitional phase, with new manager Arne Slot stepping into the hot seat. Yet, with reigning champions Manchester City faltering and title contenders Arsenal enduring their own struggles, Liverpool have quietly climbed to the top.
Midfielder Alexis Mac Allister summed it up after their 2-0 victory over Aston Villa: “Before the season started, I wouldn’t have said we were candidates, but now it looks like we are.”
He’s right. According to Opta, Liverpool now has a 58.3% chance of winning the title, a dramatic leap from just 5.1% before the season began.
Slot has undoubtedly benefitted from the strong foundation Klopp left behind, but the Dutchman has also stamped his own identity on the team.
While comparisons between Slot’s style and Klopp’s are inevitable, the new manager has dialled the tempo down a little. Still, there are unmistakable traces of Klopp’s influence, something Slot acknowledged in his pre-match comments to TNT Sports ahead of the Villa win.
"In general, I think what Jurgen's teams like to do and what my teams like to do as well is to press really high, sometimes it's maybe a bit different in formation, but the idea is the same, and we both like to score goals," Slot said.
"For me it was really important that they (Liverpool) chose me because of the way I play and not because I won the league in Holland.
"My expectations were not about the amount of wins or those kind of things, when you come in at a new club you want the team to play as soon as they can to the standards you want them to play, getting across your ideas as soon as we can."
With a five-point cushion over rivals City, you might expect Arne Slot to step in front of the media and start tempering expectations. Instead, he’s taking a different approach entirely, focusing on one simple demand: that his players give their all, day in and day out
"I'm not trying to manage expectations with the squad because we don't talk about expectations," he said.
"We do talk about expectations and the only expectations I have is that they put the same effort in on a daily basis, like they've done for the past three, four, five months and probably for the last six or seven years – but I'm only here for three, four, five months now.
"That's the only expectation there is – that they work every day as hard as they can to get their habits, our habits, what we want to see on the pitch in the best possible way. And with that, normally results come as well. But I'm not asking them to win every game – I'm hoping they do – but what I do ask from them is they put the effort in on a daily basis, and that's the only thing we focus on."
With 15 wins, one draw, and just one loss in Arne Slot’s first 17 games across all competitions, Liverpool are way ahead of where they would have expected to be.
But it’s the run of fixtures after the international break that may reveal if they’re truly the team to beat. They resume with what should be a straightforward trip to Southampton, followed by a Champions League clash against European giants Real Madrid.
Then, they face three tricky Premier League games against Manchester City, Newcastle and a Merseyside derby with Everton.
If Liverpool emerge unscathed from these tests, their hopes of securing just a second Premier League title could start to feel like a real possibility.
