With a new face in the Anfield dugout for the first time since 2015, it promises to be a fascinating season for Liverpool. Ahead of kick-off in the 2024-25 Premier League season, we ask five questions of Arne Slot’s men.
Can Slot Pick up Where Klopp Left Off?
It was a rollercoaster of a season in 2023-24 for Liverpool.
Wanting to improve on an insipid 2022-23 campaign, they challenged for the Premier League title along with Arsenal and Manchester City up until the last month or so, all while managing the emotions of Jürgen Klopp’s shock announcement in January that he was leaving at the end of the season.
Despite the disappointment of their title charge fading away and Klopp’s departure after almost nine of the best years of Liverpool fans’ lives, it was a more than respectable campaign for the Reds. Third place in the Premier League and a return to the UEFA Champions League, along with lifting the EFL Cup in February, giving the new man plenty to build on.
It was a bit of a surprise when Liverpool turned to Feyenoord boss Arne Slot to replace the most successful manager in their recent history.
Slot has made some promising first impressions in pre-season, but the real work starts now.
The Dutch coach was supposedly favoured by Liverpool because his Feyenoord team had a similar playing style to that of Klopp’s Liverpool; high-pressing, four at the back and aggressive.
There will be inevitable differences, though, one of which has already been highlighted by the players.
Curtis Jones recently said on Liverpool’s tour of the United States: “We’re not in a rush to attack. We need to break teams down and when we give the ball away, we can press.
“In the past, it was a rush to get the ball back, a bit too direct, up and down, up and down. Now we want to have all the ball and completely kill a team.”
Harvey Elliott later added: “It’s very elegant, Dutch style, it’s very nice. The style of play is a lot different. It’s more about in possession now.”
One area Slot will need to improve is Liverpool’s openness defensively. They did have the third-best expected goals (xG) against in the Premier League last season (46.2), but it was much higher than title rivals Manchester City (35.9) and Arsenal (28.4).
Part of that was due to Liverpool facing 80 big chances, defined as chances from which the opposing team would have been expected to score. That was as many as Everton, more than Newcastle United (79) and Nottingham Forest (74) and almost twice as many as Arsenal (43).
Going the other way, Liverpool were creative, amassing more xG than any other team in the Premier League (89.3), and Slot’s Feyenoord also impressed in that area, recording a total of 95.2 xG from their 34 Eredivisie games last season.
Last season suggested Liverpool were on their way back to challenging at the top. Slot has his work cut out to follow Klopp, but he’ll back himself to do so.
What To Do With Trent Alexander-Arnold?
To be honest, this question could have been an article of its own. A discussion point that has almost caused as much debate in England as ‘are Jaffa Cakes a biscuit or a cake?’
Trent Alexander-Arnold divides opinion like few others, but not because anyone doubts that he has immense talent. It’s just where that talent is best utilised.
He was Klopp’s right-back for years, though the German did assign him more of a hybrid role in his last season and a half where Alexander-Arnold would drift inside and become an extra man in midfield in possession, with mixed results.
People will debate his defensive credentials until the day he retires, but Alexander-Arnold’s biggest strength has always been in chance creation for Liverpool.
He has recorded at least 12 Premier League assists in three separate seasons, as well as seven in 2020-21 and nine in 2022-23. He only managed four last season, though did play just 28 league games, his fewest since 2017-18 (19 games).
It could be argued that Liverpool’s vice-captain would have had more were it not for the profligacy of others in front of goal, but his expected assist (xA) total was just 6.1, also his lowest since 2017-18 (1.7 xA).
Alexander-Arnold’s most productive Premier League season was in 2019-20 while he was still playing as an orthodox right-back. He registered 13 assists, with 87 chances created from his 38 appearances. The 2021-22 campaign was arguably more impressive, though, with 12 assists from 90 chances created in 32 league games.
There has been talk that the player wants to play in midfield long-term, where he briefly featured for England during Euro 2024 before losing his place to Conor Gallagher and then Kobbie Mainoo. He did, however, say in an interview with The Mirror after the tournament that he doesn’t mind where he plays, which will be music to Slot’s ears.
Liverpool’s failed move to sign Real Sociedad midfielder Martín Zubimendi suggests Slot sees Alexander-Arnold as a right-back, so the question becomes whether he will be used to provide width or if he will continue to invert into the midfield.
Lutsharel Geertruida was Slot’s main right-back at Feyenoord, though unfortunately we can’t look at his overall touch zone map to get an idea of his positioning as the Netherlands international only played around three-quarters of his games on the right, occasionally playing at centre-back or even left-back.
Using his touch zone map from the final game of the season against Excelsior, when Geertruida did play right-back, we can see how it compares to Alexander-Arnold’s overall map.
It does seem the Dutchman was asked to venture centrally too, though it must be said he is a very different profile of player to Alexander-Arnold, so who knows how Slot will want to use the England international?
I suppose that’s why we’ve asked the question.
Can Liverpool Keep Key Men Fit?
Every team gets injuries, but some get more than others, and fans of Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea and Newcastle will tell you that it’s absolutely a factor in form.
To some it’s a reason, to others it’s an excuse, but it’s very rare you’ll find a successful team also being one that missed lots of players for much of the season.
Liverpool had their own injury problems in 2023-24, not so much in big injuries to any one player, but almost everyone missed a few games throughout the campaign. Captain Virgil van Dijk (36) was the only player to start more than 32 Premier League games for Klopp’s side. By comparison, six Arsenal players started at least 34 league games.
Some players missed games for non-injury reasons; for example, Mohamed Salah and Wataru Endo competed in mid-season international tournaments, while Luis Díaz was understandably distracted by his parents being kidnapped (and thankfully safely released), but it is striking that Díaz and Alexis Mac Allister were the only two other than Van Dijk to start more than 28 league games for Liverpool in 2023-24.
Slot is big on player fitness, wanting his backroom staff to help manage workloads so the chances of muscle injuries in particular are reduced as much as possible. Last season at Feyenoord, two players (Geertruida and Dávid Hancko) started all 34 Eredivisie games, while three more started at least 29.
Liverpool are likely to enter the season with a big enough squad to cope, but Slot will not want to be chopping and changing out of necessity too much, and it would be a huge boost for him if the likes of Andy Robertson, Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota can play more often than they did last time out, or at least be available to.
Will Van Dijk and Salah Regress or Continue to Set the Standard?
We all get older, it is one of the unfortunate certainties of life. Few are told how quickly they’re ageing more than footballers are though, with players who are world-class one minute being told they are washed up and past it the next.
Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah have been a vital part of Liverpool’s successes over the last six years, but at the age of 33 and 32 respectively, some are already writing their football career obituaries.
It probably wasn’t helped by Liverpool’s drop-off in form at the business end of last season, which Van Dijk and Salah were both unable to arrest.
However, to misquote Mark Twain, rumours of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Of Premier League defenders in 2023-24, only Everton’s James Tarkowski (145 of 207) won more aerial duels than Van Dijk (140 of 172), while of defenders who played at least 15 games, none were dribbled past by an opponent fewer times than Van Dijk (twice) and according to Opta definitions he didn’t make a single mistake that led to an opposition shot.
Meanwhile, Salah recorded 28 goal involvements (18 goals, 10 assists) in 32 Premier League appearances, and 38 goal involvements in 44 games in all competitions (25 goals, 13 assists). In the Premier League, only Erling Haaland (121) attempted more shots than him (114), only Ollie Watkins (13) and Cole Palmer (11) recorded more assists, while just five players created more chances from open play than Salah (64), and all played at least three more games than him.
As is the case with Alexander-Arnold, both are into the last year of their contracts so uncertainty around their futures could be an unwelcome distraction, but otherwise Slot will surely be licking his lips at the chance to work with two players who remain among the best in the business.
Will Darwin Núñez Finally ‘Explode’?
When Liverpool signed Darwin Núñez, there was excitement. He had previously taken a year to settle at Benfica, scoring just six goals in 29 Primeira Liga games before exploding in his second campaign when he hit 26 goals in 28 games. That was enough to persuade Liverpool to spend big money to get him in 2022.
His first season at Anfield didn’t entirely convince, with nine goals in 29 Premier League games, but many hoped the Uruguayan centre forward would find the next level in his second campaign as he did in Portugal. He hit a dramatic double against Newcastle in August 2023 that hinted he might be making that next step, but never really caught fire last season either.
Núñez ended 2023-24 with 11 goals in 36 Premier League games, but did also provide eight assists, more than twice as many as his previous season (three). Notably, his xG was up at a respectable 16.4, so if he’d even slightly overperformed against his xG he’d have been challenging Salah to be Liverpool’s top scorer.
And that’s what Slot needs to unlock in Núñez, turning chances and xG into consistent goals.
Only five players attempted more shots in the Premier League last season than his 108, while just three had more than his 33 big chances, and of players who played at least 350 minutes, only Haaland (0.8) had a higher non-penalty xG per 90 minutes than his 0.7.
Núñez regularly gets into positions to score but just hasn’t been finding the net often enough. Of the other nine players to have at least 23 big chances in the Premier League last season, all had at least a 31.4% conversion rate. Núñez converted just 18.2% of his.
However, anyone who analyses strikers will tell you that those who regularly get chances to score have more potential for improvement than those who fashion few chances, even if they score from a higher percentage. Eventually, those chances start going in more often.
Slot worked hard to improve the output of Mexican striker Santiago Giménez at Feyenoord. He had signed in the summer of 2022 from Cruz Azul in Liga MX, very much a raw talent to be moulded.
Slot decided he needed to manage Giménez carefully in his first half a season so he could prepare him for his style of football. He played 12 times – only four of which were starts – in the Eredivisie prior to the mid-season break for the 2022 World Cup, scoring twice from 21 shots.
After domestic football returned and Slot had prepared him sufficiently, he hit 13 goals from 65 shots in 20 games (17 starts).
With competition in a fit-again Jota and potentially Cody Gakpo (depending on where he’ll play, but this isn’t ‘six questions about Liverpool’), Núñez will need to step up. Under a new boss in a new system, we could finally see the player Liverpool thought they were getting two years ago.
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