On a weekend when Arsenal lost to Bournemouth and Manchester City barely scraped by with another close win without the injured Rodri (this time against Wolves), Liverpool posted their best result of the season so far: a 2-1 win against Chelsea at Anfield. The win put them back atop the table and makes it seven wins from eight in the league and 10 out of 11 in all competitions under new boss Arne Slot.
With the win over Chelsea, Slot became the second-fastest Premier League manager to 10 wins — behind only Pep Guardiola. And despite conceding a goal against Chelsea, his team have still only conceded three all season — or five fewer than any other side.
Despite all of that, the short term looks way better than the long term. Liverpool’s three best players, Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, and Trent Alexander-Arnold, all have less than a year left on their contracts. While it’s unlikely, the club have created a situation where there’s now a real chance that this team win the Premier League or the Champions League — and then lose Van Dijk, Salah, and TAA for nothing.
There’s even another world, albeit even more unlikely, where all three players agree to contracts with new teams before this season ends. Come Jan. 1, they’ll all be able to enter into negotiations with clubs outside of England.
So how did we get there? And what is the most likely outcome to all the uncertainty surrounding the team that are currently off to their best start since the last (and first) time they won the Premier League title?