No one expected Arne Slot to win the Premier League in his first season, but now everyone is.

The Liverpool head coach joined talkSPORT ahead of the start of the Reds title defence, live on the station, where he’s looking to add title No.21 for the club with some shiny new players to do it with.

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Slot arrived at Liverpool as a relative unknown, but 12 months on he's defending the titleCredit: Getty

Slot surprised everyone last season with what turned out to be a relatively simple championship, holding Arsenal at arms length as he picked up where Jurgen Klopp left off with a squad full of hunger and energy.

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Things are different this term, though, with the Dutchman being backed to a stunning degree, spending more than any other team in the world in the transfer market.

Liverpool have forked out over £250million for four new signings, with Florian Wirtz arguably the biggest in their modern history - a world class talent arriving for British record £116m.

All of this certainly strengthens the case for Liverpool to retain their crown, but there have certainly been challenges.

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The summer began with world class vice captain Trent Alexander-Arnold joining Real Madrid for free and a car-ramming at their title celebrations left multiple injured but thankfully there were no casualties.

More horrendous news came at the start of July when striker Diogo Jota died in a car accident with his brother Andre and Slot had to bring a team in mourning back together.

He certainly appears to have done that, but a penalty shoot-out defeat to Crystal Palace in the Community Shield curtain raiser posed some questions, many of which Slot has now answered in conversation with our very own Danny Murphy.

“We celebrated really well, and that's what we did a few months ago.

I'm expecting it to be impressive, but also emotional again.”

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The club was brought to its knees by the loss of Jota, and Slot has had to try and motivate his playersCredit: Getty

“They’ve come into a team that has a proper idea of how to play football, and that always helps you to settle in. 

“I still have to adjust small things for the new ones coming in, compared with the ones that stayed, because they're not one-on-one the same players as the ones that left, and in my opinion it’s forgotten a little bit that three or four starters left the club as well.

“It's normal that people expect them to adapt so fast, because they are big signings, these players are good players.

That is not new to Jeremie [Frimpong] or Florian, but the intensity of the league is different. 

“They play for Liverpool now, that's no disrespect to Bayer Leverkusen, but history-wise, that's different from playing for Liverpool - that's for sure.

“We're very happy with the quality we've brought in, but there is no time in football, and these players already showed it against Athletic Bilbao and to a certain extent also against Palace, that we've got very good, intelligent players in. 

“But normally if you lose four or five starters and you bring four or five starters in, we will be better in one to three weeks, one to three months than we are at this moment of time.

But I think we are still for sure good enough to be competitive against every team we play.

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Liverpool have had their busiest ever summer, with Slot pointing out there have been plenty of departures too

“Last season I also felt pressure on myself because everybody maybe didn't expect a lot.

Everybody was saying after Jurgen, it's impossible, it's impossible. 

“I think now we might need more time than we needed last season because the manager changed, but the players stayed the same. 

“I've said many times that the playing style between Jurgen and me is not so different that it takes ages for them to be adapted to it.

They were still there [in December]. 

“Squad depth, quality, they have a very good manager as well, and I think they've shown this by winning the trophies they won last season. 

“It was good for us that they also had a period last season where they struggled and that's why they couldn't compete till the end for the league title. 

“But now they're strengthening the team again, so a team that's, in my opinion, one of the ones that are going to challenge for a league title.”

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The Reds boss sees Club World Cup winners Chelsea as one of Liverpool's biggest threatsCredit: Getty

“Maybe it helped that we weren't at the Club World Cup because that tournament was a lot for the players.
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