When legendary manager Jurgen Klopp stepped down at the end of the 2023-24 season, many speculated if this would mean not only the end of Liverpool as title challengers, but also as a Champions League club in the immediate future. Surely this would happen, as in the past when other legendary managers left their clubs, there was a similar fall off. The main examples of this being Arsenal after the departure of Arsene Wenger and of course, Manchester United after the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. The situation between the three clubs is vastly different, especially between United and Liverpool.
Firstly, Arsenal were in a period of Premier League malaise, without a league title in 14 years when Wenger was relieved of duties. Their performance goals season after season seemed to be ‘secure a top 4 finish and maybe win the FA cup’, which is a far cry what they were doing during Wenger’s golden years. Arsenal were dealing with extreme financial restrictions at the time ever since opening their new Emirates Stadium in 2006. To fund this massive, world class stadium, they had to be frugal in the transfer market for years, and as a result the quality of the squad stagnated and many of their stars over the next decade came from their academy, meaning the team was composed of players with mediocre talent, or, vastly inexperienced ones and thus in crunch time it usually faltered. When Wenger was replaced by Unai Emery ahead of the 2018-19 season, it was expected that they would bounce back and qualify for the Champions League again for the first time in 3 seasons, having broken a 20 year streak of qualifying for it from 1995-96 till 2015-16. After a strong start, they again finished outside of the top 4 and failed to qualify. The following season, after a poor run to start, Emery was sacked and they were again at square one. The overall results didn’t change from the end of the Wenger era. Arsenal did not regress per se, but were in the same malaise that had plagued them for the final few years of Wenger’s reign. When the financial shackles came off, and patience was placed in their new permanent manager Mikel Arteta, Arsenal eventually found a return to form where they are now, back to being a consistent Champions League club, as well as a strong title challenger.
The case of Manchester United however is even more sobering, and is what the Liverpool situation is being chiefly compared to- A long tenured manager retiring after a golden age in the clubs history, only to be followed by a decade plus of relative mediocrity, as had happened with Manchester United. After winning more than a dozen premier league titles in Sir Alex’s more than two and a half decade reign, Manchester United have not won the title since his 2013 retirement, while also failing to qualify for the Champions League every other season, and setting records for futility each year (worst defeat to ‘X ‘team, first loss to ‘Y’ team in half a century etc). Liverpool, who while excellent, were not as dominant as Manchester United (thanks mainly to the juggernaut that is Manchester City), would surely sink even further into obscurity than United did. What people fail to remember is the state that Sir Alex left the club in. This is not to purely cast blame or attack the legendary coach, but to point out differences, especially as he had “rebuilt” the squad several times during his tenure, and decided that he was too tired to do it yet again. His final title winning team was one of the oldest in the league and one of the oldest to ever win it, and there were scant few prodigies coming through their academy. Those that did, such as Paul Pogba or Ravel Morrison sought greener pastures elsewhere and had careers of varying success. Even the head office of the club and the infrastructure was suffering. Some of this was revealed by players, such as by Cristiano Ronaldo revealing areas such as the kitchen looking exactly the same as when he left in 2009 (after his brief return more than a decade later), or the stadium having glaring structural issues, such as the infamous “Old Trafford waterfall” seen last season when there was a torrential leak from the roof of the stadium during heavy rains in the middle of a game last season. The owners and executives of the club were not fulfilling their duties in keeping the facilities world class, and the all conquering team was allowed to age without any promising replacements. To top it all off, Sir Alex Ferguson recommended a coach in David Moyes as his successor, who had never managed a club of such stature, and was shown to be far out of this depth.
Now, Liverpool may not have gone down the sentimental path and listened to a Klopp recommendation for a replacement and instead did their due diligence, but their new head coach, Arne Slot, is also unproven at this level and so time will tell if he is up to the task. However, everything else could not be further from the Manchester United approach. Their owners and front office have been working on renovating and expanding the legendary stadium, Anfield, for years, with just this past season seeing new seating areas opened. In recent years they have moved to a brand new training complex, and they have done this all over several years while having some financial restrictions, but not on the level that Arsenal had over a decade prior. Beyond that, Klopp himself declared “Liverpool 2.0” prior to the 2023-24 season, as the season before that, his own all-conquering team had appeared old and lethargic and as a result had their worst on field performance of his tenure. He replaced several aging players with young talent both via the academy and the transfer market, with the intention of starting a new cycle of Liverpool dominance. He was the first to say that he did not expect a return to top form to happen so soon, as Liverpool exceeded his and everyone’s expectations and mounted a title challenge for most of the year, before eventually finishing a somewhat distant third. I believe this is why he made the abrupt decision to retire. He knew the club had to be rebuilt for his successor to avoid a ‘Manchester United’, and thus extended his contract till 2026. However, after seeing how quickly his young squad progressed and matured, as well as the off field developments, he felt the club was in good hands and he could retire safely, knowing that all the tools were in place for the club to continue where he left it. It is mainly in the hands of the head office and owners to continue what they were doing, and for Slot to show he is worthy. He is the only true unknown quantity, and thus, Liverpool are in a far better position after the departure of their legendary coach to continue at an extremely high level. For what it’s worth by the way, one of Liverpool’s biggest issues on the pitch during Klopp’s final years was to stay fit and injury free, with the club seemingly hit with an extended injury crisis every season. Now, Slot comes from his previous club Feyenoord with a near spotless injury record, with player availability levels routinely over 90% during his tenure. He has now recruited his former head of physical performance at Feyenoord, Ruben Peeters to join him at Liverpool, again directly addressing a key issue instead of hoping it will just go away, as it seems Manchester United is still guilty of doing.