Almost a year ago to the day, former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp shocked the world when he announced he was to depart Anfield at the end of the season.
A period of upheaval was expected. Any pundit who could get in the vicinity of a microphone was telling the world that you want to be the manager after the next manager. Arne Slot said, ‘Hold my beer’.
With Christmas passed – when favourites begin getting locked in – the Reds have built a comfortable, if not yet unassailable, cushion at the top of the Premier League. Writing for The Players’ Tribune, forward Cody Gakpo points towards a few key elements that have made the transition so smooth.
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Cody Gakpo tips Liverpool to have ‘all the pieces’ for the Premier League title
“This process, of course, started under Klopp,” the 25-year-old wrote. “Now, Slot is building on that foundation. He’s a very down-to-earth manager. Very calm, composed. You can talk to him about football, life, anything. He’s so good tactically, and I think we fit well in his system.
“If you look at our midfield – Curtis [Jones], Ryan [Gravenberch], Dominik [Szoboszlai], Wataru [Endo], [Harvey] Elliott, Alexis [Mac Allister] – they’re all complete midfielders.
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“They can do it all: Run, win duels, and find each other between the lines. With Klopp we would more often play a long ball and then fight, but now that we’re playing with more patience, and shorter passes, you can fully see how much quality our midfield has.”
Looking inwardly, Gakpo puts his own strong performance – 14 goals and five assists in 32 appearances in all competitions – down to Slot’s use of him, reinstalling him back in his natural left-wing berth, having spent time across the front three under Klopp.
But it doesn’t all rest on the technical aspects of the squad; the Netherlands international was also keen to talk up the mental durability of the side, which has been building for years with the help of fellow countryman Virgil van Dijk.
Gakpo cast his mind back to March 2023, to that 7-0 demolition of arch-rivals Manchester United at Anfield, with Gakpo grabbing two himself. Surely a time to let yourself get a little carried away? Not with Van Dijk by your side.
Recalling the Liverpool captain’s words after the game, Gakpo wrote: “[Van Dijk] told us, ‘Now, we have to stay calm. Don’t go thinking we won 7-0, we’re the best team again. No. We were neutral before. We stay neutral’.
“Flash forward to today, and I think we have all the pieces. Now, we just stay calm, as Virgil would say. We stay neutral. But we don’t take our foot off the gas.”
