When Liverpool return to Premier League action at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, they will be playing catch-up.
Five defeats in 11 league matches have left Arne Slot’s side eight points adrift of leaders Arsenal. It hasn’t been the start to the campaign anyone envisaged after the reigning champions embarked on a £450million ($590m) summer spending spree.
However, Slot retains the unwavering support of owner Fenway Sports Group (FSG) and understandably so. The Dutch head coach has a huge amount of credit in the bank after exceeding all expectations in his first season in charge.
The new book ‘Walk On: Inside Arne Slot’s Liverpool’ by The Athletic’s James Pearce details how the former Feyenoord boss masterminded the club’s march to clinching title No 20 and explains why the transition from one era to another following the end of Jurgen Klopp’s reign proved to be seamless.
In the extract below, chairman Tom Werner reflects on an achievement to cherish after Liverpool celebrated winning the title in front of their supporters for the first time in 35 years.
Liverpool chairman Tom Werner pulls up a seat in his office at Boston’s Fenway Park. A replica of the European Cup is on the shelf beside him and he conducts his own trophy lift.
It’s late June, but the buzz of being at Anfield for the final day of the season against Crystal Palace a month earlier clearly remains for the affable billionaire American television producer and businessman.
“The overriding emotion for me was a great sense of pride,” he says. “You know even more than me how hard it is to win a Premier League title. Even though we won it five years ago, it didn’t compare to this because of what happened with Covid and the fact that the fans couldn’t participate in it.
“The relationship between Liverpool supporters and the club is unique. It’s unlike any other relationship in professional sports. The connection is so special. When Virgil (van Dijk, the captain) hoisted the trophy, all the singing, all the dancing, you realise what an important moment that was in their lives — an achievement they will never forget. When everyone went down to the Kop end and sang You’ll Never Walk Alone, you’d need to have had ice in your veins not to have goosebumps.”
Liverpool players sing in front of the Kop after winning the Premier League (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The 75-year-old, the second largest individual shareholder in Liverpool’s owner Fenway Sports Group, joined the players and staff on the open-top bus for the four-hour trophy parade through the city. “I had the honour of seeing a million fans, seeing their joy. It’s quite difficult to fully articulate what it was like. When you see a boy and his grandfather both pointing in delight towards (head coach) Arne Slot, who is holding the Premier League trophy, you see how a moment like that is a dream come true for young and old alike. No other club could have produced scenes like that.”
I take Werner back to November 2023, when manager Jurgen Klopp first informed FSG that he would be stepping down at the end of that season. There must have been a feeling of trepidation about the future.
“First of all, Jurgen is an extraordinary coach and an extraordinary man. It’s an honour to call him a friend,” Werner says. “When he told us he was going to leave, my first feeling was, ‘You’ve been a transformational manager for Liverpool, thank you for everything you’ve done, we’ll respect your decision and move on.’ The job is relentless. He did it for nearly nine years. There are so many different constituencies that you have to deal with, from the players to the medical department, the physios, the recruitment guys, the academy, the media, the football authorities and, most importantly, the supporters.
“When I think back to that period, John W Henry, Mike Gordon, Billy Hogan and I also saw it as an opportunity to find somebody… not to replace Jurgen, but someone who could come in and write the next chapter.”
Tom Werner, right, knew replacing Jurgen Klopp, centre, would be a tall order (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
How important in launching the new era was the return of former Liverpool sporting director Michael Edwards as FSG’s first chief executive of football? “You’ve met Michael, you know he’s extremely bright, extremely successful. His record is peerless. He was critical in rebuilding the structure, which included not just appointing Richard Hughes as sporting director, but also the staff under him, like the scouts.
“They say success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan. Well, I’d say Michael is probably the preeminent father of success (at Liverpool). Without his leadership, which was so important in identifying Richard and identifying so many of the players who have been so critical to the success we’ve enjoyed, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
“Did he need much persuading (to return, having left in summer 2022)? Yes and no. He’s a very talented man, and I’m sure he had a lot of competing offers. But Liverpool is Liverpool. Key for Michael was our commitment to purchasing a second club. That’s very much still the plan, but it has to be the right opportunity. We’ve looked at a number of clubs and it just hasn’t been the right fit yet. I do believe eventually that will happen.”
FSG had trusted Edwards’ judgement when it came to Hughes, and the owners were quickly impressed by how the Scotsman went about his business, especially when it came to dealing with the contract sagas involving Mohamed Salah, Van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
“I’m pleased to say that Richard is a friend of mine. And what I like about him as a friend translates into why he’s a great leader. He’s got a very kind and thoughtful outlook on life. He’s not overwhelmed by the job,” Werner says. “His experience (as technical director previously) at Bournemouth was really helpful, and the ability he had shown there to identify talent.
“My impatience is balanced by his patience. I’d call him frequently and say, ‘Richard, how are things going with Mo Salah and his contract?’, and he would say, ‘Tom, it will all be good in the end’. I think all the agents who deal with him would say that he conducts business in a very respectful way. He has a plan and he executes it.
“We were delighted that the new contracts for Mo and Virgil were sorted. But you know what? If Richard had called and said, ‘The chasm is too big’, I would have respected that too. John, Mike and I try to find people who are excellent at their jobs and let them do their jobs. We don’t meddle, we just provide support and advice from our point of view. There’s a lot of trust. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Richard.”
Mohamed Salah, left, and Virgil van Dijk signing new contracts this summer were seen as significant coups (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
In the spring of 2024, FSG had put its faith in Edwards and Hughes to find the perfect successor to Klopp, and they certainly delivered with the appointment of Slot from Dutch club Feyenoord.
“With Michael and Richard on board, we had enormous confidence that they would find the right person,” Werner says. “Arne was always their first choice, and he’s shown why that was the case. It’s a surprise to everyone that his first year went quite so wonderfully, but it’s been a source of delight. One of Arne’s great attributes is his authenticity. He’s not trying to be Jurgen Klopp, he’s not trying to be Pep Guardiola. He’s his own man, and he’s quite brilliant in all the things that he does.
“I think he saw this as a great opportunity for him. He came into a club which was very strong. He inherited a squad which was enormously talented. He felt he could work with them and help improve some of their performances. He’s a wonderful strategist. He took something that was already in very good shape and moulded it to his liking.
“His humility is balanced with a real inner belief that he knows what he’s doing. I had an opportunity to watch training before the final game of the season and it was very impressive. The fact that Arne, as head coach, was able to focus solely on coaching worked well. The dynamic is good between him, Richard and Michael.”
The iconic title celebrations and the trophy parade had been followed by the sight of Sir Paul McCartney, pop-music royalty and perhaps the city’s most famous son, joining Bruce Springsteen on stage during the latter’s series of sell-out summer concerts at Anfield. They did a duet of the Beatles song Can’t Buy Me Love.
Those weeks with the eyes of the world on Merseyside provided a snapshot of the heights Liverpool had reached both on and off the field with the help of shrewd leadership and a passionate, energised fanbase. Over the course of FSG’s reign, two sides of the stadium had been redeveloped at a cost of £200million, increasing capacity from 44,000 to 61,000.
Anfield has been vastly expanded under FSG’s ownership (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
“We are enormously proud of the improvements we’ve made at Anfield,” Werner says. “After we acquired the club in 2010, we were looking at plans that the previous owners had for a new stadium, but we felt that there was such a great history at Anfield.
“The choice really wasn’t: stay at Anfield or build a new stadium. The question in front of us was: ‘How do we renovate Anfield? How do we make it bigger, better and louder? How do we give the fans the amenities that they would get at other first-class stadiums in England?’
“I use the metaphor of the virtuous circle. The more success we have on the pitch, the more we generate through matchday, commercial and media streams, it all goes back into the club and allows us to do all the great things we do.
“We are relentless. We can always grow. Our focus is always on winning more trophies.”
Bold words were backed up with deeds as Liverpool embarked on the biggest spending spree in their history following that title triumph. Twice in one window, they shattered their transfer record. First they beat off competition from Bayern Munich and Manchester City to complete a £116million ($152.5m at the current rate) deal for Bayer Leverkusen’s attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz. Then, at the end of the window, they made striker Alexander Isak the most expensive signing in the history of British football when Newcastle United finally sanctioned a £125m move after an acrimonious saga.
Slot talked about wanting to add “new weapons” to his squad to make Liverpool a more potent attacking force, with Hugo Ekitike another exciting arrival in a £79million deal from Eintracht Frankfurt. Including performance-related add-ons, their total outlay on signings this past summer was around £449m, with up to £262m recouped from sales.
“When you have the opportunity to sign players of that calibre, you have to go for it,” Werner says. “Take someone like Florian, he’s a remarkable talent. We could be looking at a future Ballon d’Or winner. Out of all the things that have been said about Florian, if even half of them come true, he’ll be a huge contributor for us.
Werner believes Florian Wirtz can win a Ballon d’Or (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
“This summer was a different scenario to last summer. We felt there were players available who could strengthen us, and I’m sure those fans who always want us to spend money in the transfer market are happy with some of the decisions we took.
“It’s hard climbing Mount Everest once. It’s hard climbing it the second time. In fact, it might even get harder each time because the intensity you have when you achieve something together for the first time is so strong.
“I hope we’re not at the pinnacle. I hope that when we’re sat here chatting in five years, we have more incredible memories to look back on.”
This is an edited extract from Walk On: Inside Arne Slot’s Liverpool by James Pearce, published by HarperNorth (out now, £20).
