Three things Arne Slot needs to do to keep Liverpool on top of the title race

You wouldn’t necessarily believe it given the way that the discourse around the Premier League title race has focussed on last season’s top two, but Liverpool are on top of the table heading into the October international break. It’s a testament to Arne Slot’s excellent start at Anfield, but also poses a question – can Liverpool go all the way this time?

Last season, they faded down the home strait under Jürgen Klopp, and what had looked likely to be a three-horse race was whittled down to Arsenal and Manchester City rather quickly. Slot will hope that if his charges can stay in the fight for a little longer this time, they might just be able to pull off a relatively unexpected title win.

But while Liverpool are deservedly at the top of the table and have won six on the bounce while conceding just two league goals – making their defence the tightest in the entire division at present – they aren’t quite perfect, a point quite plainly made by the surprising and deeply discouraging 1-0 home defeat to an admittedly impressive Nottingham Forest. So what does Slot need to do to maintain their spot at the very top?

1. Figure out the number nine role

While Slot has taken a decent defence and made it all but watertight, he hasn’t quite got Liverpool scoring as freely as they often did under Klopp – indeed, of their 13 Premier League goals, all but nine of them have been scored by the wide forwards Mohamed Salah and Luis Díaz. That could become a problem should either lose form at some point, which is surely inevitable at some stage in a long season.

So far, Liverpool have racked up a total expected goals tally of 13.8, 6.8 of that falling to those two players – in other words, about half of their attacking threat and three-quarters of their actual end product is down to two forwards alone. They need to find more different routes to goal.

So far, neither Diogo Jota nor Darwin Núñez have firmly established themselves as a goalscoring option at number nine, with the former preferred despite scoring just twice from an xG of 2.7 and missing several good chances – including his side’s best in that defeat to Forest.

This partly serves to explain why Liverpool’s goalscoring hasn’t been especially impressive and lags behind not only Arsenal and Manchester City but teams like Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, too. As it stands, Liverpool are choosing between an out-of-position winger who doesn’t always seem to be composed when presented with poachers’ chances, and a scattershot striker who knows the role but blows both very hot and icy cold. A Plan B may be required, or failing that a dip into the January transfer market.

If nothing much changes and Slot doesn’t find ways to get his supporting cast into more dangerous areas, then they leave themselves vulnerable to either Salah or Díaz enduring a drop-off and to teams figuring out ways to keep their wingers quiet.

2. Get the midfield into more dangerous areas

Furthermore, the midfielders aren’t involved enough in and around the penalty area either, at least in terms of creating and scoring. While Liverpool do play far up enough the pitch that players like Dominik Szoboszlai feel heavily involved, the actual danger continues to come almost entirely from the flanks.

Szoboszlai has had few chances, and while he’s fourth on the xG chart a majority of his total of just 1.2 is accounted for by his dreadful point-blank miss against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Meanwhile, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister, the regular starters slightly further back, have just 0.3xG and no actual goals between them in the league, although the latter has scored once in Europe at least.

It isn’t just an issue with not getting the central three into goalscoring positions, either. Based on expected assists, central midfielders have been responsible for just a quarter of the chances created by the team, with the vast majority of the opportunities that have been created coming from out wide, either via the wingers or from Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson. Through the middle, Liverpool have generally looked rather more threatening than they actually are, with penetration in comparatively short supply.

Again, it circles back to the issue that if opposing managers figure out ways to keep Liverpool quiet down the wide areas, then they just don’t have enough routes to goal elsewhere. As yet, nobody has worked out how to quieten them down, but then they have yet to play most of the league’s strongest sides. When tested more thoroughly, they may need more from the midfield.

3. Get the supporting cast involved

One thing Klopp did extremely well was to integrate Liverpool’s academy stars into the first team over the course of years – players such as Harvey Elliott, Conor Bradley and Jarrel Quansah were all key contributors last season, and when injuries struck during the spring last season, it was young bucks like Jayden Danns who came in to make the difference.

So far, Slot has not showed quite the same trust in his second choices and has avoided rotating his team. Elliott has been injured but was given just eight minutes of the three matches before breaking his foot. Bradley and Quansah have one start between them. Curtis Jones has been no more than a fringe player, and even Cody Gakpo has spent far more time on the bench than on the field of play.

If those players don’t get at least some game time and a chance to gain and maintain a certain level of form, it could easily come back to bite Slot when fatigue and injuries start to hit over the winter or down the final stretch of the season. Besides, these are players whose progress could be integral to the club’s success in future seasons, too, ones in which Slot will hope he is still in charge.

As it stands, Slot seems to be getting the very best out of several key players going forward and has marshalled the defence exceptionally well – but there are too many players, both starters and back-ups, who are a little too peripheral to the gameplan as it stands and more work may need to be done to involve them and to get the very best out of them. If Liverpool want to win the league, they can’t be a one-trick pony. They’ll need a full squad of players playing well and contributing.

Still, there is no questioning Liverpool’s start to the season. They have been tight at the back and effective enough going forward, even if the sternest tests of their title credentials all lie in the future. It’s a promising starting point – the question is whether Slot can figure out ways to iron out the wrinkles and maintain momentum.