* This was written before Liverpool were beaten by Nottingham Forest at Anfield and, well…
While a lot of club football fans feel like the international break is an unwanted interruption, for a manager it could be a timely opportunity to take stock.
At Wolves, new head coach Rob Edwards will have used these days to begin to put his ideas into the heads of the relegation-threatened side. At the other end of the table, Pep Guardiola will have been able to reflect on a run of seven wins in eight matches and how his side have become the most realistic threat to Arsenal’s title chances.
While at Liverpool, Arne Slot may well have felt the break arrived at the perfect time. The last time a Premier League ball was kicked, it came at the end of City’s 3-0 hammering of Liverpool. Guardiola has inflicted worse results on the Anfield side in the past but this was as dominant a performance as he could have hoped for.
For Slot, it was another predictable result in the previously unthinkable collapse of the reigning champions. Pre-season, almost every pundit had Liverpool walking to the title and if they do go on to relinquish the Premier League crown, it will be this run between international breaks that will be earmarked as the most significant period.
Since returning from the October international fixtures, Liverpool have lost four of seven games. They are out of the League Cup, eighth in the Premier League and it is only in the Champions League where they have shown signs of the team they were last season.
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That collapse had some doubting the credentials of a man heralded as a genius just a few months ago and raised questions as to whether Slot was standing on the shoulders of a Jurgen Klopp giant last season.
With the likes of Scotland and Curacao in dreamland, international football from a European perspective takes a back seat until March and the festive period that shapes seasons – and careers – is upon us.
Coming out of this break, Liverpool are faced with a favourable run of fixtures. To begin, they have 19th-placed Forest followed by 18th-placed West Ham. Sunderland at home to kick off December is the hardest domestic fixture until Slot’s men travel to Spurs five days before Christmas. In Europe, they face PSV – who lost 9-3 over two legs to Arsenal last season – and Inter.
On paper, these are all winnable games and the reality is that Liverpool must do so if they have any hope of success this year as you get the sense it is now or never for a title bid. The biggest gap ever overturned by Premier League champions was 13; Liverpool are already eight behind.
Arsenal, for the first time in a long time, have the squad depth to support their promising start. City are beginning to purr in that very familiar Guardiola way.
While those two are finding everything is clicking right now, Slot has the opposite problem but there are positives to be found in the sea of negativity currently encircling his Liverpool ship.
The international break produced plenty of feel-good stories, not least Scotland’s first World Cup qualification of the 21st century. Front and centre of that effort was Andy Robertson, the third-longest-serving current Liverpool player.
Elsewhere, Julian Nagelsmann provided Slot with a blueprint on how to get the best out of Florian Wirtz and even if a 6-0 thumping of Slovakia is not a direct comparison to the Premier League, his two assists from a wide-left position should give the Dutchman something to work with.
There are plenty of problems for Slot to solve too. Up front, Hugo Ekitike’s drop in form correlates almost directly with the club’s signing of Alexander Isak. In Ekitike’s first five games, he scored three goals. In the next five, he scored zero.
Isak himself is a problem – and a very expensive one at that. His decision to go on strike resulted in a lack of pre-season and he has not played a full 90 minutes in the league since May. Even when he is on the pitch, Isak has done little to resemble a £125million player with just one assist his only contribution in the league so far. But which Premier League manager would not like to have this problem?
Then there is the Mohamed Salah question. Consigning a player who scored 34 goals just last season to being over the hill seems harsh but even if numbers are okay this year, the Egyptian has not passed the eye test. Slot must be bold and be ready to accept backlash should he concede Salah is no longer undroppable.
For Slot, these problems are why he is paid £6.6million a year and a man who was once praised for doing everything right has to be able to show he can stop everything from going wrong.
The judgment of Slot as a Premier League manager had already passed a verdict but this run of form has quickly seen the jury return. These next games and weeks will be defining of not only Liverpool’s season but of Slot’s tenure. If things have not improved by the time of the next international break, it is hard to see how he survives beyond the summer.
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