Is Arne Slot privately accepting that Liverpool might just have one hand on the Premier League trophy?
Almost everyone outside the Reds’ management team and playing squad will believe that is the case after the leaders beat West Ham this afternoon with an 89th-minute Virgil van Dijk winner to go 13 points clear of Arsenal with just six matches remaining.
The Merseysiders know that six more points will guarantee league title number 20, and they could even clinch it next week if they beat Leicester and the Gunners were to lose at Ipswich earlier in the day. If not, it could be decided at Anfield against Tottenham Hotspur the following Sunday.
Slot not bothered about when or where the title is won
When Slot was asked after today’s match about the possibility of winning the Premier League at Liverpool’s home ground if they and Arsenal both win their next couple of games, he insisted that he doesn’t care about the particulars – just that it happens.
The Dutchman answered (via liverpoolfc.com): “If I have to win it 15 kilometres from here… I don’t care where to win it. We know we still have to win two more games, which I have tried to come back to every single time: it has been on 32 occasions difficult enough for us.
“First win two and that’s the only thing we should focus on and this week we should try to improve, improve, improve more and more to give ourselves a better chance of winning a game of football next week.”
Liverpool still need to make sure of it, but it seems a formality now!
Liverpool fans will agree with Slot about one thing – none of us are really bothered about how, when or where the Premier League title is won, so long as we win it.
There are millions of Reds supporters who’ve only lived through one top-flight triumph, and that of course was diluted partly by the global pandemic preventing the LFC family from enjoying a large-scale communal celebration.
Admitttedly there’s something extra pleasing about clinching a league title on your own ground in front of your own fans, but we’ll take it anywhere and anyhow that it comes.
Of course, it must be stressed that Liverpool still need to earn those six points to make sure of becoming champions – and we shouldn’t forget that we almost threw away two with Andy Robertson’s late own goal today – but even the most cautious and pessimistic of Reds are surely now believing it’s only a matter of when and not if!
