Sunday afternoon was a day reserved for jubilation.
With Liverpool confirmed as Premier League champions, the outpouring of emotion from fans, players and coaching staff was a sight that will live long in the memory of all those associated with the club. A 5-1 procession against Tottenham Hotspur meant celebrations began long before the final whistle blew — inside and outside Anfield.
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‘Emotion’ is a word that was synonymous with Liverpool’s era under Jurgen Klopp, but Arne Slot’s calmness has been one of the more notable elements of their season. While Slot has shown moments of passion in his debut campaign in England, he has found the perfect alchemy of chaos and control since he arrived at Anfield last summer.
Allow the dust to settle from the weekend’s festivities, and there is plenty of tactical and data-led discussion to dive into on Liverpool’s victorious campaign.
Here, The Athletic’s writers unpack some key themes that helped Slot’s side clinch the title.
Building through the heart of the pitch
Since Slot first took to Liverpool’s dugout, fans were keen to identify the hallmarks of their new playing style under the Dutchman.
Slot himself said major surgery of the squad was not required, but minor tweaks to Liverpool’s build-up were evident from the early weeks of the campaign. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s inside role was cast aside, and greater onus was placed on Liverpool’s centre-backs to construct attacks.
Using data from Footovision, you can see the subtle differences in Liverpool’s build-up across the campaign. Where last season the defensive line was narrower and the midfield three were more spread out, the opposite has been true under Slot. His side have been more likely to keep a conventional back four in build-up, with a compact midfield three that is staggered across different planes on the field — much in the same way that Slot implemented at Feyenoord.
Crucial to the tactical tweak has been the ever-present figure of Virgil van Dijk. Liverpool’s captain has been involved in 19 per cent of all of his team’s build-up phases this season — the highest share of any player in the Premier League.
“It has been a big change for me because we played a certain way under Jurgen and very successfully,” Van Dijk said this season.
“Things have changed in having more responsibility for starting attacks, and I am enjoying it. It is something I can show and it is a surprise for people to see me doing it, but it was always there. It is another string to my bow.”
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Van Dijk’s fizzed passes into compatriot Ryan Gravenberch have been a dominant theme in Liverpool’s season. Such is the strength of the connection between the Netherlands internationals that Van Dijk’s 147 forward passes to Gravenberch are comfortably the highest of any centre-back-to-midfielder combination in the Premier League.
Gravenberch’s turn to receive the ball from Van Dijk on his back foot, commit an opposition player in midfield, and catalyse Liverpool’s attack has been a pattern seen countless times under Slot this season.
“I was surprised how incredibly good he is at bringing the ball out from the back,” Slot said of Van Dijk in a recent interview with Sky Sports.
“The first training session we did, we were trying to get players free between the lines, and he found them constantly. I knew how good a player he was, but that he was that good on the ball was even a surprise to me.”
When mapping Van Dijk’s progressive passes below, those piercing balls to Gravenberch through the heart of the pitch immediately pop out. With an overall pass completion rate of 92 per cent — his highest season average in a Liverpool shirt — you can understand why he has come in for special praise from his manager.
Crucially, Slot has not instilled a regimented, dogmatic approach to Liverpool’s build-up. If the opportunity is there — or the opposition are pressing high — Liverpool’s captain can engage his muscle memory and play those missiled, diagonal passes to Mohamed Salah on the opposite flank.
Versatility has been a key theme of Liverpool’s season, and their build-up play is a perfect example of that.
From chaos to control
At the London Stadium in December, just after a 5-0 win over West Ham United that had Liverpool eight points clear heading into 2025, Slot was candid about what Liverpool needed to maintain their 90-plus-point pace and win the Premier League.
“Every three days you have to be on top of your game, every minute of the game,” he told reporters. “That’s why it is so hard to win.”
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Slot’s focus on managing the games within games has been an understated part of this season, and has shades of when Liverpool last won the league. During that 2019-20 campaign, they were ahead at half-time in 24 matches and held out for 23 wins.
“That is not the way it is for us,” Slot said after the 3-2 defeat at Fulham, speaking specifically about Manchester City’s tendency to take league titles in recent years by taking the lead and managing games to not just win but also minimise energy expenditure.
That Fulham loss proved to be the one outlier in a near-perfect game-management season from Liverpool. Marco Silva’s side had a first-half flurry, scoring three times in 14 minutes, which was the only time in 34 league matches that Liverpool conceded in quick succession (twice within 10 minutes).
Where other teams might play cautiously immediately after conceding, mindful of nullifying opposition momentum, Slot’s Liverpool made a habit of attacking hard and trying to counter-punch teams. They scored 12 times within 10 minutes of conceding themselves — the joint-most of any team in any of the past six Premier League seasons (with Newcastle United and Luton Town, both in 2023-24).
Fittingly, Luis Diaz’s equaliser at home to Tottenham Hotspur, the game when Liverpool were crowned champions, came less than five minutes after Dominic Solanke had headed the visitors into a 1-0 lead. Diaz’s smart back-post run was timed perfectly to meet Dominik Szoboszlai’s cutback, after the midfielder was threaded in behind the defence by an angled Salah pass.
This month, Van Dijk atoned for his error at home against West Ham, after causing Andy Robertson’s own goal that had Liverpool set to drop two points. Five Liverpool shots followed in three minutes after the West Ham goal, including Van Dijk glancing wide from one Alexis Mac Allister outswinging corner. At the next delivery, Van Dijk headed in.
Previously in the campaign, away to Arsenal, Van Dijk headed in an equaliser to cancel out Bukayo Saka’s ninth-minute opener. Even in a season when set pieces have not been a big part of their attacking threat, Liverpool found a way to respond to going behind.
Unsurprisingly, no team has spent a longer period in a winning game state than Liverpool’s 48 per cent. Only Arsenal have had a lower share in a losing game state than Liverpool’s 12 per cent. On the rare occasion they have fallen behind, Liverpool have often corrected things quickly.
Slot’s side scored 13 ‘flurry goals’ (a goal within 10 minutes of scoring) too, far from record-breaking numbers — they had 10 last season and 17 in 2022-23 — but the highest in the Premier League this term.
Crucially, they have been putting away mid- and lower-table teams with goals in quick succession: two in five minutes away to Ipswich Town (2-0 win); two in three minutes at home to Southampton (3-1 win); three in 14 minutes against West Ham (5-0 win); three in 11 minutes versus Bournemouth (3-0 win).
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Liverpool had the title sealed by 34 minutes against Tottenham, despite being 1-0 down after 12 minutes. Mac Allister’s rifled left-footed finish arrived just eight minutes after Diaz equalised, and Cody Gakpo made it three goals in 18 minutes to turn the game around.
Considering Liverpool were so reliant on comebacks last season and finished nine points behind champions City, it is immense progress to not only be title-winners but to earn the crown with so much control, too.
An evolution of crossing
The last time Liverpool won the Premier League, crossing was an important aspect of their game.
In the 2019-20 title campaign, Alexander-Arnold and Robertson’s deliveries from wide positions were a major feature of Liverpool’s attack. The full-backs’ barrage of pinpoint crosses into the penalty area helped them rack up 25 assists between them as Klopp’s side clinched their first league title in 30 years.
Since that season, however, Liverpool have been less focused on crossing from open play. Whether it’s the league adapting to Alexander-Arnold and Robertson’s threat, Klopp’s adjustment of the right-back’s role or the change in personnel, we have seen fewer outswinging crosses from Liverpool’s full-backs in recent seasons.
In fact, Liverpool’s open-play crosses have been decreasing overall year on year since 2019-20, down to 12.5 per game in the Premier League this season under Slot.
Under Slot, Liverpool have also updated their repertoire. In addition to Alexander-Arnold and Robertson’s outswinging and straight crosses on their dominant foot, Liverpool’s wide forwards have been regularly cutting inside and putting inswinging balls towards the back post.
As a result, Liverpool have been creating more back-post chances from open-play crosses, despite the drop in the rate of crosses per game. This season, Slot’s side have created 9.9 back-post chances per 100 crosses in the Premier League — Liverpool’s highest rate since 2018-19.
The focus on using Salah and Gakpo to cut inside and put crosses towards the back post has been complemented by different movement from the full-backs, midfielders and the centre-forward.
The full-backs’ underlaps and overlaps allow Salah and Gakpo to operate in one-versus-one situations in the wide areas, while the midfielders’ late runs into the penalty box offer a crossing option or help occupy the opposition defence, which is the main task of the centre-forward.
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The most common back-post combination has been Salah’s crosses towards Gakpo and vice versa. In the 2-0 victory against Manchester City in December, the Egyptian’s back-post cross towards Gakpo gave Liverpool the lead.
Here, Salah threads the ball between Manuel Akanji and Nathan Ake to find Gakpo’s run, while the positioning of Diaz between Kyle Walker and Ruben Dias momentarily grabs the attention of City’s right-back, which is enough time for Liverpool’s left-winger to gain an advantage and score from a simple tap-in.
“We train well — always if I have the ball, the other side has to be at the second post,” Salah told Sky Sports after that game. “I told Cody (Gakpo) before the game, ‘Every time I have the ball, and if the chance for me to play the ball to you, I’ll play it for sure’. We train that ball in training, and when we manage to do it in the game, it’s great.”
The Salah-Gakpo back-post combination works the other way as well, with the movement of the midfielders and the centre-forward still essential to the plan.
In this example, from the 4-1 victory against Ipswich, Gakpo is playing the inswinging cross towards Salah at the back post. Meanwhile, Szoboszlai is looking to attack the space between Ipswich’s left centre-back and wing-back, which grabs their attention and frees Salah in the process. Salah controls Gakpo’s cross with his right foot and smashes the ball into the roof of the net with his left.
The evolution of Liverpool’s crossing under Slot has been a key element of their attack this season, and like Robertson and Alexander-Arnold in 2019-20, it plays to the strengths of the individuals.
Liverpool’s crossing has changed, and this new attacking method has been the cornerstone of another league title.
Striking at the right moments
When Slot set out to rein in the high-octane intensity that had characterised Klopp’s tenure, he ran the risk of blunting Liverpool’s most potent edge.
This desire for more control was made clear from the outset. After his first pre-season match, Slot said: “To control the game, to not concede constant counter-attacks — that will hopefully be our style during the season.”
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But quelling counter-attacks in one direction generally limits them in the other too. Less transitional, more controlled games reduce the opportunities for Liverpool’s devastatingly quick attackers to break at speed, something that made them so formidable under Klopp.
Yet Slot never lost sight of this threat and ensured that rapid-fire counters remained at the heart of Liverpool’s attack. This season, they have been even more threatening on the break, while also improving their ability to control transitions defensively.
Slot has succeeded in making Liverpool games less transitional, and their number of counter-attacks has fallen in turn by about three per game. Yet they are creating more from less — their expected goals figure from fast breaks has leapt to 0.31 per game, their highest rate since 2018-19.
The involvement of Salah has been key to this improvement. While Liverpool are countering less overall, Salah’s involvement in these moves is higher than ever. This season, he has recorded over a touch per 90 minutes on the counter, the only player to achieve this since 2018-19.
It sounds remarkably simple, but by funnelling the ball to their best player, Liverpool are reaping greater rewards from these situations. By contrast, Darwin Nunez was Liverpool’s most active player on the break last season, and while his explosiveness is undoubtedly an asset during these sweeping moves, his erratic decision-making and unreliable close control often caused attacks to break down.
Slot’s decision to reduce Salah’s defensive responsibilities has helped, allowing the Egyptian to position himself in dangerous areas for when the ball is turned over. Salah credited Slot for allowing this creative freedom, telling Sky Sports on Sunday: “I told him, ‘As long as you rest me defensively, I will provide offensively’ — so I’m glad I did. It was the manager’s idea, of course, but he listens a lot.”
Reverting Alexander-Arnold to his natural right-back position has also helped, providing him with more opportunities to play his trademark long, raking passes that allow Liverpool to capitalise on Salah’s more advanced positioning.
Rather than stifle the chaotic danger of Klopp’s style, Slot has managed to harness it and redirect it in the right areas.
Their more effective and potent counter-attacking threat shows a manager in touch with what makes his side tick.
(Top photo: Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
