Slot Eyes Progress in Liverpool’s Recovery Against Manchester City
The upcoming match for Liverpool against Manchester City on Sunday is not a test of their title credentials, as that aspect is no longer in contention. Instead, it serves as a measure of how much Arne Slot’s team has genuinely advanced since their title defense faltered.
Slot believes that Liverpool’s performances this season have only occasionally justified defeat. More often, losses have been attributed to late-game lapses, set-piece errors, and missed opportunities rather than the overall quality of play. The 3-0 defeat to Manchester City in November was one such exception. The controversy surrounding Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed header at 1-0 still resonates for the Dutch defender, but he acknowledges the team’s shortcomings.
“In the first half we were outplayed for large parts,” he reiterated this week. “We have shown we are able to compete with any team except for large parts of the first half against City. But it also helped [them] that the goal was disallowed for the wrong reasons in my opinion and they got a penalty. But they were the better team. We want to show a different side of us [on Sunday].”
That defeat, which coincided with Pep Guardiola’s 1,000th managerial match, marked Liverpool’s seventh loss in a sequence of nine defeats over 12 games. This poor run derailed their league campaign and weakened support for Slot. The subsequent 13-game unbeaten streak and a 2-0 victory against Real Madrid in the Champions League showed signs of recovery, though doubts persisted after another set-piece failure on the south coast. Neither the team nor the coach has fully regained their earlier form, but there are now indications of progress.
In recent matches, Liverpool have responded to Slot’s calls for improvement in both defense and attack. Their 1-0 win that secured progression to the Champions League last-16 and the convincing 3-0 victory last weekend reflect this upward trend.
The team’s pressing intensity and work rate improved, fewer chances were conceded, and summer signings Hugo Ekitiké, Florian Wirtz, and Milos Kerkez have continued to develop positively. Maintaining such standards in a Premier League match just three days after a Champions League fixture, especially after failing to build on the Real Madrid victory against City in November, offers encouragement for Slot. This is why he views the upcoming rematch with City as a true indicator of Liverpool’s recent growth.
“In that game [against City] it was obvious where we struggled,” said Slot, who observed Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah miss clear chances in the second half at the Etihad Stadium. “I prefer to keep that to myself because, as you know, I always prefer to protect my players. They had the ball much more than we wanted them to, we struggled to bring the ball out from the back, they didn’t even create that many chances, but it was 2-0 at half-time and they had a penalty that they missed.
“We couldn’t press them and I was very curious to see that. In that time I was not happy with how much intensity we had in our pressing as a team. For me that is the biggest difference between this season and last season. Last season our pressing was much better than it was at the start of this season, but I do see a good development in that.
“And I see our players are able to run more, press more and press better, and combine that with offensive quality. That is why it will be interesting to see, against probably the best or one of the best teams in ball possession, if we have that progression in our work rate off the ball.”
Slot emphasized Florian Wirtz’s off-the-ball work as a key factor in his improvement. After a challenging start to his Premier League career, the 22-year-old German international is beginning to demonstrate the impact that both Liverpool and City anticipated when they pursued him last summer. Wirtz and Ekitiké shared the pitch for 56 minutes during the City defeat, but Sunday’s match may be the first occasion Guardiola’s team encounters the potent understanding between the two.
Liverpool have left themselves little room for error in the pursuit of a top-four finish and must rebuild momentum, form, and confidence in a season that could still be crowned by success in the Champions League and FA Cup. Their 200th meeting in all competitions with Manchester City, who have won only once at Anfield under Guardiola—and that behind closed doors—could influence the remainder of the campaign, despite lacking the title implications of previous encounters.
“I think we are a better team [than City] and we improved quite a lot from that [3-0] game,” Alexis Mac Allister confidently stated this week. “But now we need to show it.”
