Leveraging two great minds

Mutual respect between Jürgen Klopp and Arne Slot has enabled the new Premier League champions to preserve their era of greatness

- Luke Feltham

Liverpool are Premier League champions. That certainty was confirmed in a game that felt inevitable in the same way that their coronation had throughout the season.

But where the 5-1 thrashing of Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday felt perfunctory, the postgame celebration was illuminating.

Manager Arne Slot, stadium microphone in hand, whipped the fans into chants of, “JÜRGEN KLOPP!” It was a remarkable moment of tribute to his predecessor. (Before it was ruptured when his players accosted him with champagne bottles.)

The respect is mutual. Slot’s appointment hadn’t even been announced when Klopp chanted his name. It was an unprecedented dual set of moments. Far from feeling saccharine or forced, they are indicative of the continuity that Merseyside has thrived on.

Much of the media had predicted this would be a season of transition. The glorious near nineyear Klopp era was over; key talismen — Trent Alexander Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk — were on the last year of their contracts and seemingly had one foot out the door.

And then the past nine months happened. The obvious question to pivot to is whether this was still Klopp’s team all along or Slot’s.

A definitive answer misses the point of what has enabled this success.

Liverpool, as an institution, has done superbly to preserve the intangible attributes that make any football club great. Call it mindset, mentality or consistency, this is a team that understands who it is and what it wants to achieve.

"Identity” is one of those pseudo-philosophical concepts that we throw around all too readily in the football world. Yet here it feels perfectly apt.

What we have seen at Anfield is a homogeneous understanding of purpose.