Arne Slot was facing a doomsday scenario had he left London with a 10th loss in 13 games. Inspired in different ways by his £100m entities, his fight to survive at Liverpool will go on at least another gameweek.
With every game at the moment comes the risk of a new low for the reigning Premier League champions. The Reds came to the London Stadium on their worst run since 1952/53 and had also lost each of their last five away league games in the capital. Slot needed a change of fortunes on almost every front, and he received just that reprieve against a West Ham side mourning the death of club icon Billy Bonds.
A full recovery is not guaranteed for the current Liverpool manager – but this is proof that Slot’s reign isn’t yet untenable.
“Relief,” Slot said, asked on his prevailing emotion when Cody Gakpo fired in Liverpool’s second in stoppage-time to make their lead unassailable.
The Dutchman has to be bold to lead such a seismic turnaround. Decisions like benching Mohamed Salah for the first time in the Premier League since April 2024 could be the making of his second coming, but may spark his demise if they backfire. Fortunately for Slot, his big call to drop the club’s deified but off-the-pace talisman aged well.
Slot put this decision down to schedule and tactics rather than Salah’s form. “ Mo has had an unbelievable career at this club and will have a very good future at this club because he's such a special player,” he insisted. “Four games in 10 days with only 14 or 15 outfield players available for us, then you have to decide once in a while to make a certain line-up.”
Though no Salah, Liverpool had a new sense of life through Florian Wirtz. The German, having been absent for last week’s pair of catastrophic performances through injury, looked revitalised out there – almost as if a quick reset was exactly what he needed to start playing to a level even resembling his price tag.
“After a very positive performance from Florian, I can acknowledge that but I also want to emphasise the team performance was much better,” Slot said, downplaying the importance of individuals in his team’s triumph. But there was no denying his quality.
Playing centrally with Dominik Szoboszlai out on the right, everything was going through him, providing the early attacking impetus and – crucially – giving Alexander Isak some sort of service, albeit to mixed results at first.
The Swede has five goals in five against the Hammers and would have had his sixth if not for the goalkeeping heroics of Alphonse Areola, who produced a cat-like stop to deny Isak’s acrobatic effort from close range. His other spurned attempts were more to do with his own shortcomings, blazing a shot inside the box high and wide despite being under little pressure in an act of finishing not akin to English football’s most expensive player.
But for all his positives, it was his fellow bank-breaker who was kicking himself at half-time, spurning the best chance of the game after Gakpo put it on a plate for him with the knockback. Missed opportunities like that will make people forget about wider progress, and Slot was frustrated by repetition of Liverpool’s wastefulness in front of goal. “The things that were similar (from recent losses) were that again we couldn’t score our first chances,” he lamented.
Slot’s side nevertheless managed to survive a first half of Premier League football without conceding a goal for only the second time since 20 September. Now was time for Liverpool to take charge – a scenario that has grown increasingly rare, and that they did through their nine-figure summer signings.
Isak will take the headlines, side-footing a first-time finish into the near-corner before Areola to snatch his first Premier League goal in a Liverpool shirt and end a two-month drought in all competitions. But it was the work of Wirtz that deserves the plaudits. He showed patience and game IQ to hold the ball up on the edge of the area, waiting for the gap in West Ham’s line to be created that allowed him to slip it through to Gakpo in the box, who set up Isak to score.
Wirtz’s exemplary contribution was very much in fitting with his performance, while Isak took the glory in a moment. The Swede was then immediately subbed off for Hugo Ekitike, with Slot ceremoniously ending his outing on a high.
Liverpool had the advantage, but now came the daunting challenge of maintaining their clean sheet. Just once since their seven-game winning run at the start of the season have the Reds kept a clean sheet in the Premier League; against Aston Villa, their only league win since September.
They were aided in this pursuit by the idiocy of Hammers maestro Lucas Paqueta, whose incessant appealing in the face of referee Darren England saw him shown two yellow cards within a matter of seconds of each other.
But even reduced to 10 men, West Ham came inches from a late equaliser as Jarrod Bowen flashed his curling effort past the top corner. Slot was relieved that, for once, his team didn’t concede the first major chance that came the opposition’s way. “The good thing was that for the first time in many, many, many games, the first chance of the opponent didn’t go in as well. The best thing was it was their only chance and it came after 90 minutes,” he said.
Gakpo rubber-stamped Liverpool’s victory in stoppage time, settling any final nerves as Slot’s name bellowed out from the away end. “It tells you that this club is always together, even more in the difficult moments,” Slot said. For now, Liverpool fans still support their manager.
But goodwill can shift in an instant. If this road is to end at recovery, Liverpool need to ensure they don’t fall back into the same degenerative patterns. With Slot straddling a cliff face, he has taken a step in the right direction.
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