Rating Liverpool’s chances of winning the 2024/25 Premier League

Despite a managerial change and an expected transitional season, Liverpool showed on Saturday they are one of the teams expected to challenge Manchester City for the Premier League title in the coming campaign with a 2-0 win over Ipswich.

The Reds have a lot going on in terms of their restructuring and they will need to get things right if any challenge will be possible.

Charismatic manager Jurgen Klopp has left the club after some wonderful work over the years and Arne Slot has been brought in as his replacement. The 45-year-old joined the Reds from Feyenoord ahead of the 2024-25 season after a deal was reached with the Eredivisie club for his services.

Apart from Slot, the club also confirmed the appointment of Richard Hughes as Sporting Director as they look forward to building another formidable team that will challenge City for the Premier League titles and more. To that effect, Liverpool tickets will also see a surge in demand for the 2024/25 season, and remain hard to get.

With all the changes happening at Anfield, here is a look at the chances of the Reds fighting for the Premier League title this season and being top of their perch once more.

Liverpool’s summer transfer window business so far

As of the time of writing, the Reds are the only team in the Premier League (and I can’t find another elsewhere in the big leagues either) who have not made a transfer signing. The lack of activity suggests the club had set targets in mind which have not come off, but they are not knee-jerking into scrambled second choices either.

This could be in part to the return of Michael Edwards in a new chief executive of football for FSG who own Liverpool. In his first stint in the club as Sporting Director, he was a massive fan of data analysis provided by Ian Graham for potential signings. While Graham has not returned to the club, Edwards has drafted in former Bournemouth midfielder and later Technical Director Richard Hughes in his former sporting director role.

Edwards is credited with the signings (Firmino, Salah, Mane, Matip, Vigil Van Dyke, Alisson Becker, Robertson, and by default Philippe Coutinho who’s sale enabled key signings) that supported Liverpool’s successful 2019-20 title winning season. Naturally this was helped as Klopp agreed they were great signings and saw the same qualities with his natural eye for talent. Incidentally, Nunez was a Klopp signing not backed by the data analyst team. Not as he wasn’t a great player, just over doubts he’d fit the style of play.

So there is a chance the data is winning over outside pressure for signings, helped by the fact there is a full compliment of squad players and no long term injuries (so far, it was an issue in previous seasons so stands to reason they will be heavy attention on the medical team).

There have been bids placed of course. Georgian goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili is expected to sign before the deadline, but is likely to go straight back out again on loan as deemed the successor to Alisson’s number 1 position.

Liverpool also met Real Sociedad’s release cause for defensive midfielder Martin Zubimendi, who ultimately decided to stay at his boyhood club. Gravenberch’s performance in the number 6 role against Ipswich may ease concerns there, but with Thiago Alcantara retired and both Endo and Stefan Bajčetić rumoured to be on the way out, there is clear depth of squad issues unless Trent Alexander Arnold is deemed the back up.

There was a heavy flirtation too with scouser Anthony Gordon of Newcastle with a £75 million move including a swap deal for Joe Gomez valued at 45m, although it was driven by PSR reasons which the Magpies resolved by selling Minteh to Brighton to keep hold of their prized asset.

Where the big movements are though was the exit door, with Joel Matip leaving and Sepp van den Berg very close to joining Fabio Carvalho at Brentford. Bobby Clark is off to Red Bull Salzburg to re-join former assistant manager Pep Lijnders, but that has a hefty release clause and is driven by the player who wanted regular first-team football. Harvey Blair is also to be sold, 3rd choice keeper Adrián went to Real Betis on a free, Rhys Williams and Calvin Ramsey have gone out on loan, plus as usual a load of academy graduates were deemed not to have made the grade.

Adam Lewis and Melkamu Frauendorf are both leaving, having been given their first-team debuts under Klopp. Mateusz Musialowski, who also appeared against Sparta Prague last season, Nathan Giblin, Francis Gyimah, Luke Hewitson, Niall Osborne, and Cody Pennington were all shown the exit door.

But it’s really worth noting that the only player to really have made a noticeable contribution last season was Matip who played 1062 minutes (783 in the Premier League). Bobbly Clark was next on 261 minutes and can hardly be deemed an essential squad player. The only other player with notable minutes was Ben Doak, again just a highly rated prospect. These look like shrewd revenue driving sales.

Kosta Tsimikas and Joe Gomez are important backup players however, the Greek left back played 1465 minutes with Robbo’s injury problem.

While several fans have been clamouring for the club to make some signings with their comments on social media, Liverpool’s lack of movement was foretold by Arne Slot and Richard Hughes in their first press conference. This was also a rare move for someone behind the scenes to be there and it remains to be seen if this will be a regular occurrence. What it did though was to shed light on the transfer activity.

“It’s hard to say and speak industry-wide,” said Hughes, “I think naturally when there are major competitions during the summer – a World Cup, a European Championship and in this case a Copa America and the Olympics as well, so there’s a lot of football being played – naturally the attention is going to be there. After the flurry that there was in June, I think it will calm down a little bit, [that] would be my prediction for the month of July and then, like always, when August starts and coaches have had more time to work with players, I think then the opinions will be more set at football clubs and then you may see a situation in August which is, like in previous seasons, there’s a little bit of hurry to get things done and to make sure that everyone’s squads are in order.

“ I don’t think this will be any different. Who knows what will transpire economically? It’s hard to say and speak for other clubs but that was probably the case in June and why situations occurred as they did. But I would see a quiet July and perhaps a crescendo in August will probably await us all,” he concluded.

Even without a major signing, Liverpool, who are playing the long game in the transfer market, can still compete in the Premier League with the current squad although cover for injuries is essential. Although key bench players are voicing their concerns over playing time including goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher and versatile and experienced defender Joe Gomez who is only 27 despite being the longest serving player of nine years in the squad (not including academy players like Trent).

Liverpool’s chances in the Premier League

Klopp was Guardiola’s supposed biggest rival while he was in the Premier League but the City coach has six Premier League titles to his name, while Klopp finished with just one. It’s clear wrestling the trophy back from Manchester is a big task.

Slot, during his first press conference, is also aware of the challenge ahead.

“I think you said it correctly: if you work in this league, everybody gets better every season, so it’s also important for us to improve. One of the things is because our competitors improve as well, but that’s normal if you work in the biggest league in the world – you can expect other teams to become better. That’s also the aim we have and also the reason we come in every day: to make the team and the players better.”

The Reds have done pretty well to keep the majority of the players from last season with the likes of Virgil Van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Alexis Mac Allister, and co still part of the team and could be crucial once again under Slot’s management.

In Liverpool’s tour of the US, they faced off against Arsenal and Manchester United and were able to defeat both teams. While people do not read a lot of meaning into pre-season results, Slot was pleased with the showing of his boys in preparation for the 2024/25 season.

“I think even though it’s a friendly, you always want to aim for a win,” Slot said after the 2-1 win over Arsenal.

“You should aim for a win even if you have a small-sided game during a training session. You need to win your games, you try to do everything to win. So that’s a good thing that we did that today but I’m more pleased about the way we did so.

“Of course, I saw the second half that we had a hard time with Arsenal – they dominated possession completely. But we defended really well and I was really pleased to see this because [there were] a lot of bodies behind the ball every time they arrived into our 16,” the Dutchman concluded.

Slot said he wanted to full assess the squad, and he’s been as ruthless on the team as the selling youngsters breaking through. The lack of sentiment in those who played a big role in delivering the only silverware last season with the Carabao Cup final win against Chelsea is actually commendable.

The doubt was how he’d adapt to the style of play in the Premier League. Against Ipswich, he not only subbed Jarrell Quansah at half-time, he publicly said it was tactical and called him out for “losing every dual”. He was quick to make changes on the pitch, again something to respect. And it worked, he became the first Liverpool manager to win his opening game since Graeme Souness against Norwich in 1991 (he won his second against Palace by the same score line too, before losing to Chelsea after that)

Next up is Brentford at home, but after that the first real test with a trip to Old Trafford for the battle of the Dutch Baldies against Ten Haag’s United. Win that, and the fans will be fully on board with his methods and Slot ball.

Truth be told, the Reds are considered outsiders for the Premier League title where Guardiola may be in his last season at City and determined to go out on a high, and Arsenal determined to push them all the way again. However, based on Liverpool’s performance in the title races over the years and the stability of the squad, they cannot be ruled out totally. With some astute signings, and a continuation of the winning run, Liverpool fans will stop lamenting the loss of Klopp.

Liverpool and Slot will not be expecting too much this campaign. So, even if they don’t win the league eventually, a place in the Champions League must be attained once again to help finance the rebuilding project and long term replacements for Salah and VVD.