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The Premier League has one unique advantage over the other top-five leagues in Europe: The language.
English has essentially become the global language; therefore, most of the younger generation is learning it in school.
This allows English clubs to hire managers from all over the world with ease and without any communication difficulties with their teams.
Many great international managers have graced the Premier League over the last couple of years, most notably Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Jürgen Klopp.
After Klopp left Liverpool last summer, the club knew that finding a successor would be challenging, given the emotional bond between the German and the Kop.
The Reds opted for an international option again, hiring Dutchman Arne Slot as their new manager.
Many fans and pundits were surprised that Liverpool management would pick such an unknown name to follow in the massive footsteps of Klopp.
While Slot’s work at AZ Alkmaar and Feyenoord was great, he had never coached outside of his home country and had never managed a club as big as Liverpool before.
To say expectations were low and the general consensus was that the 2024/2025 EPL campaign would be a rebuilding year is an understatement.
Not a single football pundit had Liverpool winning the league at the start of the season.
Still, Slot managed to elevate his team to a very high level of play from the start of the season, starting strong and never letting up, culminating in his winning the Premier League in his first season in the English top flight.
He is now part of a very exclusive club, alongside Antonio Conte, Manuel Pellegrini, Carlo Ancelotti, and José Mourinho, as some of the managers to have achieved this feat.
We have already covered the tactics of Arne Slot in depth here at TFA throughout the season, so in this tactical analysis and team report, we will take a look at what made Liverpool so good this season and elevated them compared to the other top teams in the Premier League.
Arne Slot Compact Pressing
Slot took over from Klopp, and the two managers could not be more different in their general approach.
The Dutchman has always been a manager who preferred possession, had clear principles with the ball and wanted to dominate the games with the ball at his players’ feet.
On the other hand, Jürgen Klopp has always been a coach who valued the work against the ball highly, especially the counter-press —a tactical measure that won him two Bundesliga titles at Borussia Dortmund and took the German football scene by storm.
As a coach, you must always be strategic about the things you do.
Coming to a massive club like Liverpool as the successor of a beloved coach like Klopp, you can’t just turn things around and not expect any backlash.
Many of Klopp’s principles remain deeply rooted in the team and the club to this day, and Slot would have been a fool trying to dismantle these effective measures.
While Slot was still keen to implement his playstyle in possession, he also knew he had a rock-solid foundation against the ball that he needed to build upon if he wanted to find immediate success with his new club.
Slot started the season playing with a 4-2-4 formation in many games but pivoted back towards a more traditional 4-2-3-1 formation for the majority of the season.
In the picture above, we can see them moving in this formation during the game against Newcastle United, shifting from their right side to their left.
Liverpool have been very focused on keeping their centre closed off when their opponents are building up in their first line of play.
Still, we can see Luis Díaz ready to press the full-back out of their narrow shape.
The pass to the full-back is a very traditional trigger for an attacking press, and Slot made use of that a lot this season, something that Klopp also liked to do.
Díaz is a tad late in this situation, and this now shows one thing Liverpool are great at doing this season, but also exposes one of their few weaknesses.
Newcastle are now able to play a pass down the line because the Reds are pressing from the inside out.
Liverpool are ready for that, however.
One of the central midfielders is moving towards that side now as well, with the man covering the near-sided Newcastle midfielder and pinning the Magpies to the sideline.
Andrew Robertson is now able to press the Newcastle winger but has to cover a pretty big distance to do so.
This leads to Newcastle finding another solution for a tricky situation.
In the end, Liverpool are still pinning them to the sideline, with Robertson having to press backwards this time and covering another big distance for the team.
Still, Liverpool are in a 4-2-3-1 shape here, shifting their striker backwards and keeping the far-sided winger up the field.
The two central midfielders are also pushing towards the ball, covering the midfielders and taking away the option for a switch.
With Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté covering the depth of the pitch, they can prevent a pass behind the defensive line.
In the end, this compact defensive approach leads to a successful pressing attempt and Slot’s men winning the ball back.
They had a visible plan to attack at any stage of the build-up, imposed their principles onto a very good team in Newcastle, and were able to trigger their press and get into their pressing zone.
In addition to that, every player showed great work ethic and a perfect attitude suited to the press they wanted to play.
Slot made clever use of these principles and the team’s culture over the course of the season to excel in the phase against the ball as well.
Arne Slot Pressing Traps & Quick Ball Progression
Another thing that Arne Slot was able to take from his predecessor is his knack for pressing traps.
Klopp was always very creative with his pressing traps, setting them up perfectly and, therefore, managing to get them to work a lot.
Slot himself isn’t as reliant on the play against the ball in the end, and therefore, he used this tactical measure not as frequently as Klopp did.
As seen in the last paragraph, Liverpool under Slot are always trying to keep the centre of the field clogged with numbers, not allowing the opposing team to play through that space.
So, how would they set up a pressing trap?
Exactly, by pretending to allow a pass towards the centre for once.
As seen in the picture above, Liverpool are setting up the trap by letting one of the central midfielders be dragged out of his deep position.
Díaz on the wing is also playing with too much outside leverage in this situation, allowing a gap in the otherwise very compact defensive block, which invites West Ham United to play the line-breaking pass to the near half-space.
But with this being the only remaining option, Robertson are able to instantly press the attacker in the half-space and win the ball back quickly.
Slot has his men take away all the other passing options and is baiting the opponent into playing a pass that they think is a good solution, but in reality, it gets Liverpool in the perfect position to win back the ball.
Not only is Robertson able to press instantly, but two other Liverpool players are ready to either double-team or collect the second balls.
After winning the ball in these situations, Liverpool are great at taking advantage of the positioning and chaos in their opponents’ ranks and progressing the ball with deadly precision quickly after winning it.
While you might think that Liverpool are just rushing forward now, one of the key principles that Slot managed to implement in his first season is that they are playing the first pass safe after winning it.
The Reds manage to establish possession and control with one pass just like that.
After that, Liverpool are in their build-up structure, dragging two midfielders of West Ham forward.
Alexis Mac Allister is now instantly recognising the space between the lines and is making a horizontal run into the gap between the midfielders.
This allows Slot’s men to play a line-breaking pass themselves now with their second pass after winning the ball, picking up the pace themselves.
The Argentinian midfielder is now able to turn towards the goal, win his dribble and can now use his passing game from the most dangerous zone right in front of the box in the centre of the field.
These situations are happening frequently with Liverpool, and that makes them incredibly hard to play against because your own attacks can quickly lead to a counterattack.
Arne Slot Fast Paced Attack
In terms of these fast-paced attacks, Liverpool have been one of the best teams—not just in England—but in the entirety of European football this season.
While obviously their positional play and play in possession have been excellent, Liverpool really thrives in these types of situations.
For most of the season, Liverpool dominated through their good movement in the final third, their good presence in the final line and the elite play of their wingers when they got them into isolated 1v1 situations.
Notably, Mohamed Salah has been world-class for Arne Slot this season, creating numerous goals, assists, and opportunities overall from the right wing for the Reds.
Taking a look at the fast-paced attacks, Liverpool are prioritising the centre of the field over the wings most of the time.
Here, they win the ball in midfield and instantly make use of one key principle that many good teams use, but only a few do it, as well as Liverpool under Arne Slot.
Liverpool are constantly focusing on alternating movements from the centre to the outside and the other way around, zig-zagging their way through a backwards-moving defence and keeping them moving while having to switch directions every other step.
Here, they carry the ball to the outside while the inverted right-back makes a run towards the inside, crossing lines in the midfield.
Mo Salah is now drifting towards the outside, dragging the full-back with him and creating space that way in the centre of the field that Liverpool can now exploit.
One easy pass to the midfielder that’s making the run towards the backline, and with the full-back being too far outside, one centre-back now needs to step up to put pressure on the ball.
Liverpool exploits that one more time with another crossing diagonal run right in the back of said centre-back, allowing the through-ball to be played towards Dominik Szoboszlai, who finishes cold-blooded in the box.
Every player in this situation knew where to run, when to run and where to play the ball.
This execution of Slot’s fundamental principles has worked wonderfully for Liverpool all season long, consistently opening up advantages for them.
Arne Slot Efficient Attacking Patterns
Arne Slot has brought a lot of interesting ideas in possession to Liverpool, and the team managed to use them to their advantage.
Still, the season is long and especially for English teams, there are a lot of games that need to be played with three domestic competitions as well as the games in the UEFA Champions League.
It was very clear from the start that there would be games where Liverpool players would be a bit tired or struggle with the physical demands placed on them.
Therefore, Slot also had to find solutions to win these types of games and dissect opposing defences with less intensity for his players.
While their wing play has been elite, constantly being forced into 1v1 duels anywhere on the pitch is exhausting, and even players like Salah and Díaz need some slack at some point.
Here, we can see a perfect example of a very efficient attacking pattern that Slot and his men developed during the season.
Ipswich Town, as the clear-cut underdog in this game, concentrated on defending in a deep block, not pressing the Liverpool backline often and trying to keep their centre closed off to prevent attacks through the centre.
In the early stages of the season, Liverpool often used only a back four in their build-up.
Still, as the season progressed, especially against a deep block, they incorporated another build-up structure into their game.
As seen in the picture above, they used a very asymmetrical shape of their backline, with Robertson pushing inwards to form a back-three and Trent Alexander-Arnold pushing high up the right-hand side.
Ipswich now tried to press Robertson a little bit after he threatened to move into their half, but Liverpool switched play quickly through Van Dijk to Konaté here.
The Frenchman now had a lot of space in front of him and instantly attacked it with the ball at his feet.
This forced Ipswich into a pressing attempt, as well as forcing them to shift from their right defensive side to their left defensive side.
Liverpool now takes advantage of what the opposing defence is giving them.
Once again, they have a significant presence in the last line, and Diaz and Salah are now making runs behind the defensive line, targeting the two centre-backs, forcing them to drop back a couple of steps.
This now allows Szoboszlai to get open between the lines once again, and Konaté is able to play a pass against the direction of the collective movement of the Ipswich defence.
Szoboszlai now finds himself in a lot of space, uses his first touch to get moving towards the goal.
In the end, he scores from the edge of the box, giving his team an early lead in a game against a very defensive-minded opponent, which is a blessing for the entire team after a bunch of rough weeks.
In the end, it’s just Robertson carrying the ball forward, two passes played square and one good pass by Konaté that created a goal for Liverpool, just as efficient as Arne Slot wants his team to be.
Conclusion
I personally believe that many people are currently overvaluing tactics in terms of positional play a bit.
Football is not a chess match between two managers; the players still decide it on the pitch, and the best tactics are simply putting the players in the best position for them to make plays.
Liverpool tactics under Arne Slot coaching style might not be the most exciting team to watch, but they are consistently executing their key principles, and the Dutchman always gets the most out of his players, using their strengths as weapons.
This allows his team to be deadly in any phase of the game.
In the end, Liverpool won the title by being themselves, building on their strong foundation and getting their best qualities involved in every game.
The last couple of weeks haven’t been ideal, and we need to discuss that as well.
Liverpool got eliminated in the UEFA Champions League by PSG and lost the EFL Cup final to Newcastle, which shows that the team is not perfect or invincible.
Ultimately, nobody will care.
In just his first season at Liverpool, after a summer transfer window that did not work out the way the club wanted, Arne Slot will lift the Premier League trophy, and that’s all the fans will care about.
Joining an elite club of managers, Slot has already cemented himself in Premier League and Liverpool history.
With the team’s impressive performance over the course of the season, there is reason to believe that the best is yet to come.
But until then, Slot and his team can enjoy the moment they created with their hard work this season.
Congratulations to Liverpool for winning the Premier League in the 2024/2025 season!
