What else is football for other than its swell of emotions? And if it was love at first sight with Jürgen Klopp, when will the Liverpool faithful fall for Arne Slot? A continued superb start to the season, top of the table when it was supposed to be Arsenal and Manchester City streaking away, he could hardly have done a better job. There remains a distance. Fans too cool for school? Possibly. A love hangover from those last days of Klopp ending so bittersweetly? Almost certainly.
From Slot, there will be no touchline pogo, no bearlike screams, even if he can be demonstrative from the technical area. The will to win is still just as apparent as Klopp’s. The results so far are excellent, just two league goals conceded all season, but his horizons are far wider. “I am hoping to do more special things than only winning nine out of ten, but it’s a good start,” Slot said.
He chooses to do things differently. “Whatever the outside world thinks of us we don’t really care,” said the captain, Virgil van Dijk, following a win collected with few pyrotechnics beyond Diogo Jota’s fine goal. “We want to try challenge, compete, win and be successful.”
After last season’s improvements under Oliver Glasner, these are sincere struggles for Crystal Palace. They kicked off as one of five clubs yet to register a win. The wait goes on, even if their manager said “how we played in the second half encourages us.”
Michael Olise is sorely missed. Eberechi Eze finds space much harder to come by. Replaced by Will Hughes in the second half, a change that brought improvement, there were only fleeting signs of the player Adam Wharton looked in spring. He did, though, play a part in the move from which Palace might have been ahead in the first minute. Wharton supplied Ismaïla Sarr, only for Eddie Nketiah to trigger the offside trap as he netted.
Slot’s selection paid off for his team’s ninth-minute winner. Kostas Tsimikas had replaced Andy Robertson; the left-back’s ball found Cody Gakpo, restored to the flank role he made his name in, to slot in Jota. Liverpool’s best finisher stole ahead of Trevoh Chalobah, the Palace debutant. Three simple football decisions, each paying dividends. “You want to show what you got,” said Gakpo, after his first Premier League start of the season.
For Glasner, the bad news kept rolling as the defender Daniel Muñoz limped off. Liverpool looked for a second, playing a patient fare alien during the ecstatic romance of the Klopp era. As multiple corners piled up, their players looked to Aaron Briggs, Slot’s set-piece coach, for guidance. Van Dijk headed over towards the end of a first half that had Selhurst Park mollified.
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The second-half Slot strategy was sitting deep, inviting pressure to trigger counters. Perhaps where he has so far lost out in affections is such dispassionate pragmatism. Glasner rejigged, Hughes and Jean-Philippe Mateta joining the attack. Palace finally began to bubble. “We could have done better in the second,” said Van Dijk. “But we knew they’d come out with a bit of pressure on the ball.”
Still, Jota should have closed the contest. Trent Alexander-Arnold planted a free-kick on his head, only for the striker to head horribly wide. Would Liverpool live to regret that? Palace had a legitimate claim for a penalty when Van Dijk held Marc Guéhi with both hands, only for VAR to rule it had been “not sustained”.
“A clear penalty,” declared Glasner, dismissing the PGMOL’s social media explanation. “I did read it but I don’t agree with it.” He took solace that his team had “created many chance against the best team at defending in the league”.
Next, Eze forced a save from Alisson, who scrambled away the resulting corner, the last of the Brazilian’s actions. The injured goalkeeper was replaced by Vitezslav Jaros, the Czech making his first ever Liverpool appearance, Caoimhín Kelleher also absent.
When Eze galloped in on goal, Jaros’s first test arrived. He saved well, clasping the ball to his chest. Liverpool could close out victory, continue that exemplary start. If the thrill of the chase is not like it was under the last guy, their chances of success are as real as in the wild and crazy years.
