A real rivalry has developed between Arsenal and Liverpool this season.
Indeed, Arsenal were challenging Liverpool at the top of the Premier League for large periods of this season, but, in the end, the Reds won the league at a canter.
Arne Slot has earned huge praise for the job he’s done this season. However, Mikel Arteta has been quite disparaging towards the Reds in recent times.
Indeed, Arteta has made some interesting comments about Liverpool and their points tally recently.
Now, speaking on the BBC Radio Five Live Football Daily Podcast, Arne Slot has shared his verdict on these comments, noting that he actually agrees with a lot of the points Arteta is making here.
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Arne Slot agrees with Mikel Arteta’s Liverpool comments
Slot spoke about Arteta’s comments regarding Liverpool’s points haul.
The Dutchman says he agrees with what Arteta is saying, claiming that you have to be in the right place at the right time if you want to win the league in any given season.
“Everybody has the right to have his own opinion. What Mikel said was the moment we won the league, we were at 85, 83 points, I don’t know. At the end of the season, they had more points, but four games before the end where we won it, we were on more points than them,” Slot said.
“What he meant was sometimes you have to be in the right place at the right time. I totally agree with him on that, only not in a Premier League season. In a Champions League, FA Cup, World Cups, then it is about being in the right time, in the right place, so we were very unlucky that we had to play Paris Saint-Germain in March.
“That was in the end, because in this country we don’t have a winter break. We had to play from November until March with all these Real Madrid games and city games, all these tough games in between. And then in the end of that period, we had to play one team that can play just as intense as we can.”
Lowest Premier League winning points totals
As Slot says, Mikel Arteta is right about what it takes to win the Premier League.
Of course, it always takes a lot of quality to win the league, but it also takes a lot of luck.
You need to have the right sort of timing to get your just rewards, and Liverpool know that better than any other team.
The Reds have, in recent years, lost league titles on 97 and 93 points respectively, while other sides in the past have won the league with a much smaller tally.
Lowest Premier League winning points totals | Season | Points tally |
Manchester United | 1996/97 | 75 |
Arsenal | 1997/98 | 78 |
Manchester United | 1998/99 | 79 |
Manchester United | 2000/01 | 80 |
Manchester United | 2010/11 | 80 |
Liverpool have had the luxury of having a lower points target this year, that’s certainly true, but Mikel Arteta can’t be bitter about that. After all, it’s his Arsenal team who have allowed Liverpool off the hook slightly this season.