Featured Image Credit: Getty
Chris Byfield
Jurgen Klopp predicted Arne Slot’s success upon leaving Liverpool.
On Sunday, Liverpool secured their first Premier League title since the 2019-20 campaign and just their second league crown in 35 years, by beating Tottenham Hotspur 5-1 at Anfield.
Dominic Solanke gave Tottenham an early lead, only for the Reds to respond with first half goals from Luis Díaz, Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo before Mohamed Salah netted in the second period and Destiny Udogie scored an own goal.
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The victory saw the Reds go 15 points clear of second place Arsenal at the Premier League summit and secure a record 20th top flight title, one more than bitter rivals Manchester United.
It has been a dream Premier League campaign for Liverpool, and beyond the expectation of many of their supporters when former manager Klopp departed the club last summer.
Upon his departure, however, the German insisted that Liverpool side, who finished third in last year’s Premier League, would be “fine” and that the club would push on.
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"I will be fine,” Klopp said. “And more importantly the club as well, because you saw the team now, that's a bunch of really good people, and they will be fine, or even more.
“Somebody will come in, full of dreams, full of energy, full of excitement and full of new ideas, rightly so, and lead the club into that future. It’s great."
`As Klopp predicted, Liverpool have only gone from strength to strength under the stewardship of Slot, with their campaign having included a staggering run of 26 unbeaten games and only two league defeats.
Indeed, Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville labelled Slot's first season among the "best we've seen".
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"I think he's done an absolutely brilliant job, honestly," he said on the Gary Neville Podcast. "I think that at the start of the season - none of us can rewrite history - there weren't many Liverpool fans who thought they would win the league, let alone anybody else.
"I don't remember any pundit or analyst or journalist or fan really saying Liverpool will win the league. It was Manchester City or Arsenal. So to do what they've done is very special.
"Over a season, the coaching performance of Arne Slot is one of the best we've seen.
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"And I say that in light of whom he took over from. One of the greatest personalities and characters we've seen in the Premier League, a Liverpool icon and legend. Going into that dressing room and having to establish control and authority, but knowing he probably could never do it the same way as Jurgen Klopp.
"No one can be the same personality and character as he was. But the way in which all season he's coped with the conversations around the contracts, he's dealt with those conversations. They've then signed two, I think the most important two of those players, Van Dijk and Salah, in the last couple of weeks.
"It's also the way in which he's kept calm and composed at points where maybe it's not gone as well for them as he would have wanted."