And thank you very much to everyone for joining us for this title celebration.
See you soon!
“LFC fan from Toronto, via Mumbai,” writes Irshad Daftari. “Feeling a wave of emotions in the last 24 hours. My dad, the original LFC fan with a photographic memory for stats, teams, players, etc, passed away two months ago. Our last few text exchanges were literally a casual “they’re doing well, it’s looking good?” so as not to jinx it after all the pre-Klopp years of disappointment. We watched several pivotal moments together - the miracle of Istanbul, the Gerrard slip, and the 2019 CL final (with his 6 month old granddaughter). Post Covid, we spoke of actually visiting Anfield together, but those things never do work out do they?
“Can’t help feeling he’d be really happy with how this turned out.”
Thanks for sharing such, Irshad.
It was probably just as well the decisive match came against Tottenham. Liverpool fans object to the suggestion this season has been anti-climactic, as though that somehow diminishes their achievement, but it is not a criticism to point out no side has come close to staying with them, that the title was effectively won on the January afternoon when Darwin Núñez scored twice in injury time to beat Brentford then Arsenal threw away a two-goal lead to draw against Aston Villa.
Jonathan Wilson on Liverpool’s title win.
Marcus Rashford wants to join a Champions League club but not one in London (Liverpool?). His chances of finding a new team this summer have been somewhat disrupted by suffering a season-ending hamstring injury, which kept him out of Aston Villa’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace.
The great Ben Fisher has more.
Fair play to anyone reading this blog in Spain and Portugal, running down their batteries to read this golden content.
It should not be forgotten in all this that Slot came in and effectively bought no one. Only Federico Chiesa arrived and he barely kicked a ball in the Premier League. It is quite impressive to take on someone else’s squad and improve the situation.
Tim emails re Liverpool’s best games this season: “If we’re talking Premier League fixtures, the month of December has a few fixtures where Slot’s team either (1) came alive in terms of structure and attacking prowess or (2) grinded out a result despite tough circumstances. 3-3 vs Newcastle, 2-2 against Fulham after an early Robertson red card down 0-1 come to mind for the latter. For the former, 2-0 against City at Anfield showed a more clinical edge compared to the 23-24 Liverpool, and 3-6 against Spurs was almost the textbook definition of catharsis, mate. Then throw in a few detonations of West Ham and Leicester in there.
“Even in the short-term, I remember being very impressed with Slot’s management of a congested fixture period in November with some real sugar highs coming from the new Champions League format, but when you look at his management of a crucial period...it was obvious that Liverpool were going to take some beating by Christmastime.
“Great coverage as always from the Guardian all season. Love from Minnesota.”
Not that anyone reading this should question my professionalism but I am currently working in the garden. There is a plane doing circles in the vicinity of my house. Maybe the pilot just loves semi-detached nirvana. Not sure what else he has to look at, unless he’s really into industrial estates, too.
The latest Football Weekly is ready for your aural pleasure. Max is joined by Baz, John Brewin and Robyn Cowen. Liverpool are, understandably, the hot topic of discussion.
Caleb Ajinomoh emails: “My wife wanted to sell our TV because I’d become increasingly attached to it. I begged her to wait one more day because I didn’t want to watch our title-securing game on a mobile device. Who does that??!
“Anyway, what an absolute bedlam it was eh? Liverpool fan since that Stevie G FA Cup final over Hislop’s WHU in 06. Congrats to all. YNWA.”
Hope you still have the TV.
We also have to suspect they will need to acquire a new right-back when Trent Alexander-Arnold’s departure for Real Madrid is confirmed. Will Slot look for someone similar to offer variety and competition alongside Conor Bradley?
Throwing things forward a bit, Slot has admitted he will be making changes to the squad over the summer. He is aiming to find personnel that fit his ideals and systems, meaning he will sell a few Premier League winners off. I suspect there will be a new No 9 signed and Darwin Nunez will go to the highest bidder.
I think Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea was the best game I’ve attended this season. It was gloriously entertaining from start to finish. What Liverpool fixtures stand out for you?
For a wider look at the weekend’s football. We have 10 talking points from the Premier League and FA Cup.
“Do you recall another manager who has made such an impact on his debut, so quietly?” asks Krishnamoorthy.
Can’t think of anyone who has done it so quietly. You could argue Nuno Espirito Santo is doing an excellent job without much noise.
“I am originally from Costa Rica and living in London,” emails Grettal. “In my formative teenage years, when I was starting to get interested in football, my dad told me the story about the Miracle of Istanbul and the team’s anthem got stuck in my head. I flirted with other leagues and teams but ultimately there’s nothing like the Premier League.
“Fast forward 10 years when I met my husband, also Costa Rican, who’s a die-hard Liverpool fan since forever and next thing I know I am getting married 6 months after meeting him, in a red dress, with a Liverpool themed wedding cake and dancing our first song to “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.
“Flashbacks of a lot of magical moments lived with Liverpool (when Jurgen got the management, the Borussia game, TAA’s magical corner, the Champions title... just to name a few) put a knot on my throat every single time.
“Almost 10 years after dancing to “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for the first time, here we are, living in the UK and watching Liverpool securing the Premier League’s title for the second time, in our home, with our dogs. Might not be very magical for everyone, but to me, that’s the stuff of fairytales.”
Good afternoon! I have covered a fair amount of Liverpool this season, I’ve even seen them lose three times. I spent many a Friday morning with Arne Slot, documenting his denials that this league title was inevitable from around November onwards.
And that’s it from me. Will Unwin is here to lead you through the afternoon’s continued festivities. You can email him here.
Danny Stephens writes in: “Been a Liverpool fan since Ian Rush convinced this then 6-year-old Welsh boy that Liverpool were the team for me back in the early 80s. I sat in my garden near Berlin – where we’ve had some top-notch weather – grilling a kilo of spare ribs and waiting for it all to happen. When the third goal went in I opened a 16 year old bottle of wine I’d been saving for the right moment to breathe before being able to pour it at the final whistle. Just sat in the sunshine with good food, good wine and basking in all the sun-drenched glory. Cracking afternoon.”
Sounds tough, Danny …
Let’s go to Bergentheim, a small town on the German border in the far east of the Netherlands, in the 80s. Local headteacher and football coach Arend Slot has started bringing his six-year-old son to matches with him at the weekend to give his wife “a bit of peace and quiet”.
“Every Saturday Arne went with his dad to watch the game and would sit on the bench next to his dad, to watch and listen to how his dad coached his team.” Given the Dutch reputation for heated tactical dressing-room debate it is perhaps little wonder that he grew up with a highly developed football brain.
Rob Draper has the story on how Slot went from sitting with his dad in the dugout to winning the title with Liverpool, via Cambuur, AZ and Feyenoord.
We’ve also had correspondence from Joe in New Zealand: “I grew up with three whole families of Scousers who had emigrated. Some Toffees among them, but I could be nothing but a Red.”
Ian in Frankfurt: “I moved to Germany in 2002 and it took a German to bring us number 19 but it seems I do not now have to move to Holland for Arne to do the business!”
Simon in the Czech Republic: “I watched it in a pub in Olomouc with a bunch of Czech Reds fans and lots of good Pilsner beer.”
And Matt: “Yesterday was my 50th birthday, and I spent it on the very front row of the Anfield Road stand, going crazy with the rest of Shankly’s family. As birthdays go …”
Thanks to Justin Jackson for his email from Brisbane, Australia: “I actually woke up to a text of my Dad, who is from England and lives here, dressed up in his Liverpool gear holding a very old scarf at 3.30am in the morning when I checked the Guardian blog that we had won!
“So I went on a massive spending spree and bought merch for both of us and he shared the highlights and I had to laugh at Spurs kicking the own goal. The crowd belting out YNWA song had me in tears!”
Mohamed Salah will surely scoop the PFA’s player of the year award this season (28 goals, 18 assists, one legendary selfie). Jonathan Liew wrote this excellent piece of his impact on and off the pitch at Anfield before the title was wrapped up yesterday.
But if we take him out of the equation for just a second, who else has stood out in this Liverpool team?
Liverpool to hold title parade on 26 May
Liverpool will celebrate their Premier League title triumph with a 15km trophy parade around the city on Monday 26 May.
The parade, on the Bank Holiday Monday after the final game of the season against Crystal Palace, will enable players and fans to celebrate in a way that was denied them by the Covid pandemic in 2020.
Liverpool’s Champions League trophy parade in 2019 drew an estimated crowd of 750,000 and a similar number are expected to mark the club’s record-equalling 20th league title. The former manager Jürgen Klopp might be in attendance. The parade is scheduled to start at 2.30pm and estimated to last between three and five hours.
Updated
An email from Phil proves that football really is a generation game:
My dad and I have had our season ticket in the Kop for 30 years, ups and downs. Yesterday was absolutely magic. After the 2020 title and not being able to be there, we thought we might never be there together to watch us win the league. We did it! My 11 year old daughter goes with us sometimes now, she wasn’t there yesterday but will go to see the champions against Arsenal. My first game in 1990 was to watch us, as champions, beat Utd 4-0. Don’t think she’ll have to wait as long as me to be there to see us win again.
Arne Slot is, somewhat surprisingly, the first Dutch manager to win the Premier League. “The country I’m from has a lot of great football players, had a lot of great managers as well,” Slot said yesterday. “To be the first one is so special, because that will always be, that will always stay the same.”
The likes of Erik ten Hag, Guus Hiddink and Louis van Gaal never really came close to winning the league (they all have FA Cup winners’ medals).
Frank de Boer didn’t win a game at Crystal Palace, of course.
Ollie Benson gets in touch “I managed to stream the game from the bottom bunk of a camper van, in Peaceful Bay, down the SW corner of Western Australia. My daughter and wife were asleep in the top bunk, and it was anything but Peaceful when Mo scored!”
A line just in from Ibrahima Konaté, who has been so impressive at the back alongside Virgil van Dijk this season, on how Slot laid the foundations for Liverpool’s title tilt last summer:
“Just before we started the season he showed us why we didn’t win the league the year before …”
Thanks Taha. Yes, you can get in touch with me here – Liverpool fans, let me know where in the world you watched from yesterday.
The rest of you, who do you think can mount the best challenge to Slot’s team next season? Potential FA Cup winners Manchester City? Possible European champions Arsenal?
That’ll be all from me. Keep those emails coming in to Billy Munday, who’ll guide you through the next couple of hours.
A lovely email in from Jan from Prague:
For various reasons, mainly Europeean 20th history, I grew up in Vienna, while my uncle lived in Southport. When I was 10 – in 1989 – my parents sent me to stay with him for a month to learn English. When he and my cousin picked me up from the airport I was informed that I was a Liverpool fan now. Having only known teams such as Swarowski Innsbruck, Rapid of First Vienna FC, I asked “are they any good”? The answer satisfied me and that was that. The next day we visited my other cousin who had married a Manx who tried to persuade me to join their ManU divide of the family. Luckily (in the long run) I had already been claimed by the Liverpool fans. My uncle would later translate for the czech players and their wives and got me a private tour of Melwood in 2005. I remember Carra having three different hair products in his locker and about 15 bottles of MOM-champagne on Gerrard’s locker. My 6-year old daughter drew me a painting of Salah for my birthday which made me cry. I am 46 years old.
Henrik Wilberg writes in from Norway: “I became a fan at perhaps the worst possible moment, the 1990-91 season. Our postie was Inge Thun, the keeper who let in 11 goals in what is still Liverpool’s biggest win, against Strømsgodset. His safe hands delivered signed photos of Steve McManaman and Stig Inge Bjornebye in the 90s. It probably would have meant even more if the Spice Boys had gone all the way in 97, or if Houllier’s “10 games from greatness” had yielded a proper title. Football is no longer everything – yesterday was my daughter’s 2nd birthday – but what else connects one as intimately to history as this?”
If we’re sticking to the new formula – that football began in 1992 – we need to make note that Liverpool, with two Premier League titles, have gone past Leicester and Blackburn. Some groundbreaking research from me, I know.
Updated
Pete Tomlin writes in: “I’m a grizzled old Liverpool fan – this is the 12th that I have witnessed. However, this one feels so much more special than any of the previous ones. I shed quite a few tears yesterday which is something I haven’t done for years. This was partly out of relief & pride but also, like James Woodfinden, it was partly with memories of my Dad who sat alongside me when we won the last title during the Covid period. We hugged each other that day & how I wish I could do so again. Sadly he passed away in 2021. Happy & sad emotions today!”
Updated
In all the “United-Liverpool, who’s bigger?” hoo-ha, it’s been slightly forgotten that Manchester City’s hold on the title is over after four consecutive victories. Even with their passage to the FA Cup final, Pep Guardiola admitted yesterday that this hasn’t been a good season for his side.
Pieter Bruinsma writes in: “My first school was on Anfield Road, then you move away, make a life and travel the world, build a family in a foreign land, but those streets are still within me. The whole day and celebration just resonates with me. I’ve mostly lost my accent, yet my dual nationality sons are Liverpool supporters, so it carries on. I even remember the Blue supporters in the family, who would have been kicking the dog yesterday, with a smile.
“Time moves on, memories fade, your roots become diluted, but yesterday was a day of celebration and smiles. And, remembering.”
This is a lovely piece by Mark Brown, highlighting the local and global reach of the club.
The teenage boy section of the Jacob family, from New Jersey, persuaded their parents that they all had to come because of the match.
The family are of Egyptian heritage and there’s two words as to why the boys are Liverpool until they die: “Mo Salah,” one said. “That started it, but then we fell in love with the team. All of our friends love the team as well.
Sachin Nakrani guides us through the campaign.
Fascinating to read this by Louise Taylor, after Manchester United won their 19th league title in 2011 to surpass Liverpool.
The weaponry at his own disposal has been utilised with extreme care and cleverness this season – in the hands of lesser managers it is unlikely that a comparitively non‑vintage United squad would have finished ahead of Chelsea and Arsenal – but even Ferguson’s genius cannot disguise the reality that several key components need replacing. Urgently.
They did win the league again in 2013, but that rebuild never really clicked together.
More correspondence dropping in. Michael Batson writes: “Watched the match at home in Phnom Penh where kick-off was 10:30pm local time. The feed at the sports bar a few doors down was ahead of ours so I heard the goals go in slightly ahead of seeing them. A great night.”
James Woodfinden writes: “I have to completely agree with Joel, 2020 was an incredible achievement and it definitely made me well up a bit, but to have that euphoric celebration at the final whistle made me think of my late Dad who ALWAYS wanted me to like football. Sadly I waited until my early teens during the Roy Hodgson era to immerse myself fully in football! That one was for you, Dad!”
The platform was, of course, set by Jürgen Klopp. Arne Slot made note of that through the medium of song.
This is a fun thought from Robert Winiker: “Would it be an idea to stage a joint celebration with the title win five years ago, which was cancelled due to the pandemic? With Jürgen Klopp and the players included?”
Jordan Henderson can sort the van out. Gini, Bobby, Sadio, get in.
Talking points from Anfield and elsewhere:
A call to Liverpool supporters: share your thoughts on the title win over here.
Joel writes in: “This win means so much to Liverpool fans – mostly for being able to celebrate with each other. I grew up with my uncle Nick telling me tales of the glory years, yearning for them again. He’s sadly no longer with us, but to finally see the scenes he spoke of has warmed my heart – this one really does mean more.”
Liverpool are level with Manchester United on league title wins for the first time since 2011. Here’s what Gary Neville had to say yesterday before they sealed it:
This should cause tremors at Old Trafford. It’s painful. Being honest with you, I don’t want to be here today. But you have to be here because the reality of it is you’ve got to be gracious when you’re a Manchester United player, when you’re a Manchester United fan, when you’re a Liverpool player or Liverpool fan and congratulate the other team whether it’s City, Liverpool, Arsenal, United. Whoever wins the league you’ve got to be gracious and you’ve got to say what an achievement because it’s bloody hard to win it.
But it’s painful. It’s been painful for the last 10 years because Liverpool and Manchester City have been the most dominant teams.
All the great Liverpool managers and players and all the great Manchester United managers and players, the two most successful clubs in the country, would always say your bread and butter is the league title. And Manchester United had won more than Liverpool up until two hours, three hours’ time. And that’s where you could keep these sorts of arguments alive around who’s the most successful club. The minute that Liverpool go level with Manchester United on league titles, because they’ve won more European Cups, that debate is over for a period.
Here’s that selfie Mo Salah took after scoring against Spurs, his 28th league goal of the season.
“The club did everything they felt they possibly could to get a deal but it wasn’t to be.”
That’s Brendan Rodgers in January 2014, the then Liverpool manager disappointed because he couldn’t get his man: Mo Salah had gone to Stamford Bridge.
It’s a great what-if. If Salah joins then, does he help Liverpool get over the line that season? Or did he need that stumbling period at Chelsea, followed by the resurgence in Italy? Anywho, it’s worked out pretty nicely.
There’s plenty to read on Liverpool’s season, their first under Arne Slot. He’s slotted in (allow it) seamlessly.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the morning after. This victory parade is going to be a long one – we’ve still got a month of the Premier League season to go, with Crystal Palace visiting Anfield on 25 May. Plenty of time if you want to get yourself over to Liverpool for a knees-up.
Keep me company as the reaction continues, this being a very different title win to the one five years ago in the pandemic; this time, Liverpool had their fans with them, some genuine soul to go with history.
