Pep Guardiola EXPOSED: How Arne Slot used Man City's tactics to oust them

Loosening the grip that Pep Guardiola and Manchester City had on the Premier League title was always going to be difficult. Only Jurgen Klopp had found a way over the last eight years. That is until Arne Slot rolled up.

No one expected the Reds to win the league this season. Arsenal had been the Citizens' closest challengers over the past two years, so they were expected to challenge. But Liverpool were supposedly 'miles off'.

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Klopp's departure sent everyone's head into a spin. Be it Liverpool fans getting anxious about the future of their team, or rival fans getting overexcited that the Reds' talented team was going to fall away.

So in spite of the unsuccessful title challenge of last season, our credentials as potential winners were completely dismissed, and as such, the pressure was off. Slot had a great team to work with - although it needed some TLC (and it still does), but only minor improvements were necessary.

Now that Liverpool have secured their second title in 5 years, one of the main reasons why the team was able to constantly deliver impressive performances has been revealed, and it turns out that the best way to develop is not just through introspection, but through analysing those around you.

Slot using Man City's tactics against them

According to Paul Joyce at The Times, the club put a lot of effort into video analysis alongside utilising specialist statistics to identify the areas of play that Liverpool were weakest at.

Through doing this, the squad was compared to that of Manchester City's that had won the league in the season prior, capping off a historic four-peat of the Premier League.

It turns out, that even without using bringing in any new players of note, that Liverpool had everything they needed to be successful, the specific tactics just needed to be tweaked.

The report claims: "Running speeds were highlighted, and the fact that one player on the halfway line had been beaten by a team-mate who had started in the opposition half.

"The squad was shown a graph of the number of players each Premier League side had behind the ball when a rival team was in the opponent's final third.

"Last season, Liverpool ranked below halfway while, this term, victories have usually coincided with the having the most players tracking back. The games in which they have dropped points have been those when they could have tracked back more. Hard work has paid off.

"That message was hammered home in the early weeks of the campaign with Slot showing clips of Manchester City's Phil Foden and Saving as examples of the work rate he desired."

While it might seem like a small thing for the work-rate to be high, it is clear that last season's team under Jurgen Klopp was not working as fluently as the prime Klopp teams of yesteryear.

As such, the decision to follow City's example and supply with forwards with a greater defensive awareness has enable the team to become more solid and harder to play against.

For a tweak that small to have made such a difference is remarkable and Slot deserves immense praise for identifying the weakness and putting his remedy in place straight away.

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But now that Liverpool have got themselves back on their perch as England's most successful club, it will be even more fascinating to see how teams attempt to pry the title off us next season. After all, Slot hasn't even had the chance to buy any of his own players yet that will suit his system to a tee.

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