Liverpool can achieve a modern first by proving Arne Slot’s claim | OneFootball

If it’s the sort of thing that Arne Slot just doesn’t see the value of getting into, Luis Enrique had no problem going there.

“We will play against the best team in Europe,” the Paris Saint-Germain manager said of Liverpool. That description is hard to dispute given their comfortable first-place positions at the top of both the Premier League and the Champions League group stage, but that debate isn’t really what’s significant here.

What is more relevant is what that does for the squad, and what it says for their chances of history this season. Because, as supreme as Liverpool have been for eight years, it’s only been infrequently the case that they were outright the best side on the continent.

That was probably true in late 2019, when they were on that astounding title-winning run before the Covid break. It was of course through that year that Jurgen Klopp’s team actually won the club’s last Champions League. Even that, however, was preceded by Manchester City beating them to the Premier League by a point.

A league's thorough round-robin nature always makes it a truer reflection of quality, which is what many of Liverpool’s greatest figures have always maintained. A knock-out competition, no matter its prestige, is always prone to sudden twists of fate or fortune.

While Slot wasn’t willing to get into the specific discussion, he did say “the best team in Europe has to win the Champions League”.

That’s maybe what they should do, but it is only occasionally the case. The history of the Champions League alone is characterised by numerous examples of the best team not winning, from Juventus 1996-97, Arsenal 2003-04 and Chelsea 2004-05 right through to Barcelona 2009-10 and maybe Liverpool themselves in 2019-20. In that last season, mind, Bayern Munich had quite a claim.

Liverpool know all of this as well as anyone, from both sides of the discussion.

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In the modern era, Liverpool have proved that you can win the Champions League without being the best in Europe (Getty Images)

For their fifth Champions League, in 2004-05, they were the fifth best team in England let alone the best on the continent. That isn’t to dispute the value of that victory under Rafael Benitez, but one of the team's strengths was clearly in navigating the nuances of knock-out football. Many of the squad themselves felt they were far better in 2008-09, when they won nothing.

There is little debate right now. With Real Madrid still enduring an erratic campaign, and Manchester City having fallen away, nobody can match Liverpool’s sheer consistency of excellence. That isn’t to say it will stay like that, and March-May tends to be when true quality is really shown. Madrid have shown that more than anyone, and it’s why they’re always such a danger. There are still few sides close to Liverpool at the moment. PSG might just be one, given their form.

These are hugely exciting times for Liverpool, then, but they also bring a different type of pressure. And now, expectation.

The Jurgen Klopp era was largely defined by a sense of defiance, after all. It was mostly upward surge, as they frequently put it up to better-resourced rivals like City and Madrid. While it wouldn’t be Liverpool to say any major trophies were seen as a "bonus", they admirably went to the outer limits of their will and talent to secure the biggest prizes. Nobody else beat City to a title. No English club reached as many Champions League finals over that period.

That has fed into one of the quirks of this campaign. After so much toil, it has suddenly looked so easy.

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Liverpool have opened up a 13-point lead at the top of the Premier League (Getty Images)

Slot would certainly argue with that perception, and he immediately pointed to how the lack of an FA Cup match last weekend helped with the difficult work of preparing for a game against a revitalised and youthful PSG.

“It’s a good thing because two days would probably not be enough to prepare for PSG, because I’m really impressed by what I saw,” Slot said, in an answer that was typically about taking it one game at a time.

While Slot has to stay that, and anyone serious just has to look at it that way, it’s impossible for anyone else not to look at what those games might mean. This is where that expectation comes in. It’s not just “PSG, then Southampton, then PSG, then Newcastle United”, in the way the manager put it.

It’s potentially the Premier League, then the Carabao Cup… and maybe the Champions League. If they really do go that far, it would be in-keeping with an earlier era of Liverpool’s history, when they really did expect to win everything.

There was little doubt they were the best team on the continent through most of their first four European Cups. They fittingly won the league as part of doubles for the first and last of those, in 1977 and 1984. Even when they finished second in England, to Nottingham Forest in 1977-78, that year’s European Cup was part of a period of dominance where they just represented the continent’s standard; the team to beat. No one came close over such a length of time. They were like Real Madrid now, and duly beat the Spanish champions for the third European Cup in 1981.

That was actually part of a last stand for Bob Paisley’s first great team, before a Sir Alex Ferguson-style overhaul. Liverpool immediately went and won three English titles in a row, with the last of those bringing an entire European era to its culmination with what happened in 1983-84.

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Klopp’s Liverpool won their only Champions League before lifting the Premier League (Getty Images)

They won the League Cup, the league and the European Cup, in their only treble that has involved both of the latter two major trophies. That of course matches what can be attained this season.

To only add to the symbolism, that feat came in Joe Fagan’s first season as manager, in 1983-84.

This is what Liverpool have to be thinking about right now. Those within the club will naturally seek to avoid such talk, but you sometimes have to grasp opportunities as they come.

Liverpool have been that good, while the field has been that inconsistent.

This is why descriptions like the best team in Europe are more than just talk. It’s a level to rise to, a status to really prove. Sometimes it just falls for you.

Slot, naturally, insists he isn’t thinking that way at all. When asked whether anyone had mentioned Fagan to him, or if he had read up on the history, the current manager dodged that.

“My thoughts aren't on these kind of things.”

The quipped response to that comment within the club was that it was a very Fagan-style response. The challenge now is for a similar achievement.

Before that, as Slot would insist, there’s PSG - one of the biggest tests they’re going to face. They first have to go there and get the best result possible right now.