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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.

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