Liverpool has emphatically proven Paul Merson wrong after the Sky Sports pundit went early with his verdict on Arne Slot’s side this season. After the Reds had lost 1-0 at Anfield to Nottingham Forest in September, he was not convinced.
“I don’t see it,” Merson said on Sky Sports after that game in a clip that has now resurfaced and is doing the rounds on social media. “I don’t see them challenging. I don’t. They’ve got to move it quicker. It was a bit boring. It was slow.
“When you watch Jurgen Klopp’s teams play, they break and it was so quick. It wasn’t quick enough. Teams in this Premier League, they get back so quickly into shape — especially the lesser teams. It seems to me watching this game that it was ‘We don’t lose’ before ‘We win’. That’s not Liverpool.”
Liverpool has since been unbeaten in the Premier League. Winning 3-1 over Southampton this weekend and with Arsenal dropping more points, this time against Manchester United, the gap at the top is now 15 points (though the Gunners have a game in hand).
Slot’s men have shown much more in the final third than Arsenal with Mikel Arteta’s men struggling to find goals in several games thanks to a limited attacking unit and plenty of injuries. Arteta stormed out of an interview after his team drew 1-1 at Old Trafford with the title having looked out of reach for a few weeks.
“I don’t want to say that,” he insisted when asked if the race was over. “Today the frustration is that we haven’t won the game. We know the urgency and we are obligated to win every single match if you want to have any chance of doing that. I don’t think it is the right moment to talk about that.”
Liverpool.com says: In fairness, there would have been quite a few people coming out of Anfield after the Nottingham Forest game who thought that Liverpool might struggle to compete for the title. Instead, Slot learned from that day and has never forgotten it, mentioning it almost every week. Liverpool is going to win the Premier League title and any doubters, at this stage, have gone.
