Empire of the Kop
·5 November 2024
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Yahoo sportsEmpire of the Kop
·5 November 2024
Jamie Carragher noticed one thing from Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Brighton on Saturday that he thinks will have displeased Arne Slot.
The Reds had to secure three points the hard way, trailing for more than half of the match before a spell of two goals in three minutes turned the game on its head and ensured that they’d usurp Manchester City at the top of the Premier League.
On Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, the ex-LFC defender analysed the passage of play between the quickfire goals from Cody Gakpo and Mo Salah, noting how frantic the home side had been in that 64-second sequence of match action and how quickly the ball moved from one end of the pitch to the other.
Carragher said: “Arne Slot didn’t talk about tactics. He spoke about energy. The crowd is now up. This is going wild; people are pressing all over the place…Look at Nunez! He’s like a madman.
“This is not what Arne Slot wants. This is Jurgen Klopp. We thought it was going to be more controlled. Liverpool win it back again, everyone flying forward. Look at the bodies. This is end to end. This is the Anfield factor.
“Again, lost the ball with six players up at the other end of the pitch, counterattack. Again, Arne Slot, he doesn’t want to see this end-to-end football. You mentioned the Nottingham Forest game – Callum Hudson-Odoi cuts in here and scores in exactly that position.
“Brighton have another half-chance but there’s no thought of ‘Can we actually have a bit of control?’. No, let’s go to the other end and let’s go quickly. Curtis Jones fantastic, as he has been, and this man Mo Salah…the Egyptian King and he scores that goal.”
You can view Carragher’s analysis in full here.
(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
In his first few matches in charge at Liverpool, Slot has by-and-large instilled a calmer, more controlled approach to the Reds’ play than the all-action style with which we’d become familiar under Klopp.
However, as Carragher correctly says, the second half against Brighton on Saturday felt like a throwback to the frenzied madness of the German’s era, when the Anfield crowd was raucous and almost sucking the ball into the opposition net through sheer collective will.
The end justified the means as LFC claimed victory and seized upon the fervour of the home support in the immediate aftermath of Gakpo’s equaliser, although the build-up to Salah’s winning goal was indeed fraught with a recklessness we haven’t seen too often this season.
It’s not something that Slot will want to become a habit, for sure, but it was just what Liverpool needed in that moment. The players fed off the energy of the crowd and duly rose to the occasion, although the Dutchman will probably be hoping for wins over Bayer Leverkusen and Aston Villa to be secured this week in a more straightforward manner!