Arne Slot looks set to win the Premier League title during his first season at Liverpool.
The majority of Liverpool fans did not expect the Dutch coach to achieve this after the former Feyenoord boss had the daunting task of having to succeed Jurgen Klopp at Anfield.
From the outside looking in, Slot’s job was made even harder as Liverpool only added Federico Chiesa to his squad for the 2024/25 campaign.
Months later, Liverpool sit 13 points ahead of Arsenal in the Premier Leagye standings, while still being in contention ot win the Champions League and the Carabao Cup.
That seemed a dream following Liverpool’s loss to Nottingham Forest at Anfield back in September, but how the Dutch coach responded would change the course of the Merseyside club’s season.
Jamie Carragher names turning point in Liverpool’s season
Anfield became a fortress again under Klopp’s reign on Merseyside and has remained so since the arrival of Slot.
However, that took a wobble on 14 September as Nottingham Forest would beat Liverpool 1-0 at Anfield, which was only the Merseyside club’s second home game of the season in the Premier League.
Speaking on Stick to Football, Jamie Carragher admitted that this result worried him at the time, but the pundit suggests that the way the Reds responded was a turning point in their season.
“I was thinking, you just mentioned the Forest game, and the Forest game came really early in the season. It’s one of those results where you go ‘ooh’,” Carragher stated. “Don’t forget under Klopp, Liverpool went years without losing at home.
“A game that was really important, nothing to do with the league, they played AC Milan away a few days later. They were getting beaten 1-0 – I think AC Milan scored within three or four minutes – and they ended up winning; I think it was 3-1.
“I look back at that game, now that you mention Forest, and I’m thinking that was a big moment for the manager. It was the first game of the Champions League and you’re losing away.
“That was probably a massive turning point, that AC Milan game. They’re still not the AC Milan of old but it’s still the San Siro, a big game.”
Euro 2024 unexpectedly helped Arne Slot at Liverpool
Going back to last summer, Slot’s job at Liverpool was made tougher by the fact that Euro 2024 and the 2024 Copa America took place ahead of the current season.
This meant that some of his key stars would miss a large chunk of pre-season and may not have the Dutch coach’s ideas processed by the time the campaign began.
Carragher believes that this may have helped Slot as it allowed the former Feyenoord boss to probably evaluate his squad and took the pressure off the board to add new players as Liverpool only tried to sign Martin Zubimendi from Real Sociedad.
“You know what I think was important. We’d probably say this was a negative. We often say having a tournament being a negative for new managers coming in, you know, how he doesn’t get the players back till whenever and he hasn’t had them from the first day of preseason?” Carragher said.
“In some ways that may have helped Liverpool because I think the noise coming from the club was we’re not going in the market for players because he hasn’t seen his squad yet.
“It was almost this case of he doesn’t know what they are like. Then the preseason started and it was like ‘okay’. Then basically they only went for one player [Zubimendi]. It wasn’t like three or four, they went for one player.”
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