Liverpool are Premier League champions 2024/25
Sunday’s win over Tottenham confirmed what we’ve long known: Liverpool are the best team in England. They’ve been champions-elect for months now, turning what was expected to be a titanic three-way title race into a Premier League procession.
Consequently, some have attempted to rain on Liverpool’s parade before it’s even got under way, much to the annoyance of Virgil van Dijk, who even took Michael Owen to task for implying that his team’s 2024-25 campaign hasn’t been as “special” as it could have been because of their Champions League last-16 exit and Carabao Cup final loss to Newcastle. Rather remarkably, it’s taken a couple of legends from Liverpool’s traditional rivals to put the scale of Arne Slot’s achievement into perspective.
“We have to praise the manager because he’s done an amazing job,” former Manchester United captain Roy Keane said on Sky Sports. “It was a decent group when he took over, but if someone had said at the start of the season that Liverpool would be where they are now, you wouldn’t have believed them, you’d have thought they needed locking up!”
For Liverpool, delight at moving one step closer. For Leicester, failure to overcome the league’s best side confirmed another fact known for a while: Leicester will play in the Championship next season. A penny for the thoughts of the Leicester chairman, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, as he surveyed the scenes at full time. Ruud van Nistelrooy was jeered by some fans as he headed down the tunnel, hands in pockets.
Gary Neville certainly didn’t think Liverpool would be anywhere near the top of the table. In fact, he tipped them to finish fifth – below Manchester United and Tottenham
“I’m stunned by Liverpool” the ex-Red Devils right-back admitted on Sky. “For Slot to take over from Jurgen Klopp, a massive personality and character who was loved beyond words by Liverpool fans, you just thought there was going to be a drop-off, everyone thought there would be a drop-off, I certainly did. But Slot’s been perfect in terms of what Liverpool needed this season.”
Neville’s not wrong either, not now at least. Klopp may have left Liverpool in rude health, but transitions are not meant to be this smooth, especially not for a manager succeeding a living legend. So how did Slot do it? How did he make a seemingly impossible task look quite so easy?
It has to be said, Klopp couldn’t have done much more to pave the way for Slot. For starters, the German had played a pivotal role in the long-overdue midfield overhaul of 2023. Klopp also had Anfield singing his successor’s name before Slot had even arrived on Merseyside, while he also joked that he’d made the incoming coach’s life a little easier by failing to win either the league or the Champions League in his final season in charge. Nobody, though, expected Slot to sustain a title challenge in his first season in English football.
“My view would be that the impact of Klopp leaving will take its toll,” Neville argued. “That’s going off evidence based on the history of losing a manager like that. I think there’ll be some pain this season for Liverpool, and it could cost them… Liverpool are well below the level of Arsenal and City, and I don’t think that’s shocking to anybody.”
The statisticians certainly agreed with Neville’s appraisal, with Opta giving the Reds only a 5.1 percent chance of winning the title. Slot, though, was never in any doubt that Klopp had left him with a squad capable of challenging for major honours – and he immediately made that clear to his new players.
“I remember his first team meeting in America,” left-back Andy Robertson recalled, “and he basically said, ‘We finished third last season and the season before, but we now want to finish above the other two.’ So, in his mind, it was clear that he had come to Liverpool to win trophies. It wasn’t like he’d be happy with the top four. The players could get on board with that attitude.”
Both Liverpool and Man Utd have long boasted the largest trophy collections in English football.
