Liverpool won the Premier League title with four games to spare, but in truth they’d won it ages ago, such was the stranglehold they had over the rest…
AND with that, history descends.
You spend weeks working out connotations and how many points you need from how many games.
You think about Tarkowski’s equaliser and realise it was a blessing, you praise West Ham for beating Arsenal in February and shoving everything along to the point of almost no return, but more than anything you want it done.
You need the relief, the release, the let off. You need history to enwrap you with its forever blanket and just say the words so all CVs can be updated.
Then a man blows a whistle, and the captain raises his eyes to the heavens.
Rub out the pencil, write it in ink. Drop the suffix ‘Elect’ from all correspondence. You don’t need that anymore. It’s done.
Liverpool – Premier League Champions 2024-25.
Worthy Champions, strong Champions, first Champions for many of them. Never last.
Write it in ink.
Cards on the table. At the start of the season when all TAW contributors were asked for predictions, I said that I wanted what Jürgen Klopp did in his final season – top four and a trophy.
It sounded harsh even then. A step too far. A new manager, contracts lying around unsigned and the sheer weight of expectation because of, y’know, us and I’m expecting silverware and European Cup football again. A bridge too far.
He delivered all of that on Sunday afternoon. A hell of a trophy to stick on the table, a hell of a league position.
And he did it his way. Many would have just copied what Jürgen did and hoped that the formula still worked. Not Arne Slot. He has his own ideas.
The summer was about Zubimendi and the chronic lack of a number six. Alright, Gravenberch will play there for a bit, but we need a…
Ryan Gravenberch is a title-winning number six. He plays for Liverpool, the Premier League Champions.
It’s the midfield which has stood out the most. Slot moved the creative requirements from the full backs to the central three. For Jürgen, midfield was just a battleground to win it and give it out to the wide players. For Slot, it’s where you control the game and where you alter pace and tempo. It’s where you calm the game when it’s needed.
For Jürgen, a match was a Ramones gig with 20 songs in a 30-minute set. For Arne, it’s a symphony with narrative and mood swings. Both approaches are valid. Liverpool have won league titles playing both ways. Both men have managed the League Champions.
I didn’t think football could surprise me anymore. I never thought the same players could play so differently and be great at both. That has really shone out for me.
I never thought I’d become invested in a single player ever again. Today, I think Alexis Mac Allister might be the greatest footballer in the world. He plays for Liverpool, the League Champions.
And soon people will not make it about the League Champions. They are wrong to do so, but things need to be recognised.
Arsenal are a tremendous team, they really are, but I’ve always thought that they needed a big result to move them on a bit. They needed the equivalent of our 2-1 win against Juventus in 2005 when things began to get serious.
They’ve just beaten Madrid home and away. That’s their league and it’s not nothing. It’s experiences like that which push you along. It’s games like that when you realise, you’re a serious prospect.
Liverpool haven’t had that, which sounds insane given the silverware, but the weekend when West Ham won at Arsenal and we beat Man City was where the league was done. Everything after that was admin.
It was a chess Grandmaster getting a piece ahead in a game and just running off exchanges until they have too much in the endgame. Just match them until they run out of games. That was the weekend where we won the piece.
But we didn’t do that. It took us eight points clear and then 11 the next day. Since then, they’ve extended it to 15. We took more pieces. That’s incredible. At this level that’s incredible.
Write it in ink.
Liverpool are the League Champions. And they did it for you.
There’ll be more to come.
Champions.
