(Football news) Arne Slot’s side are the only club in the competition with a perfect 12 points after four matchdays, leaving them 17 places better off than the indifferent holders in the 36-team standings.
It is only fitting that Slot is set to embrace Carlo Ancelotti after joining the Italian in an exclusive managerial club on Sunday, where a Mohamed Salah-inspired Liverpool produced a gritty second-half turnaround to sink Southampton 3-2 in their top vs. bottom battle.
Before making yet more contract-related headlines with bombshell post-game comments, the indomitable Salah had the last laugh on the wet and windy South Coast with the game-winning brace, securing Slot’s 10th win from his first 12 Premier League matches in charge.
Only Guus Hiddink and Ancelotti himself can boast as exceptional a record from their first 12 games in the competition, where Liverpool benefitted from another Manchester City capitulation to extend their insurmountable lead at the top of the table to eight points ahead of Sunday’s blockbuster bout with the holders.
Also looking down on all of their Champions League counterparts, Liverpool’s 4-0 pummelling of Bayer Leverkusen on matchday four means that they are the only side still boasting an unblemished record in the 2024-25 tournament; only in the 2021-22 campaign have they won their first five Champions League matches.
The Reds’ display at St Mary’s was lethargic and leggy at times, but Salah’s everlasting excellence means that Liverpool have now scored at least two goals in each of their last six matches across all competitions, and the time is surely nigh to end their disheartening winless sequence against the holders.
Including the 2018 and 2022 finals, Liverpool are enduring an excruciating eight-game winless run against Real Madrid, who have won seven and drawn one of their last eight meetings with their Merseyside rivals since a 4-0 Anfield annihilation all the way back in 2009.
However, Ancelotti’s troops have already failed two examinations of their title credentials in the new-look competition, October’s surprise 1-0 loss at Lille and the humbling 3-1 home defeat to AC Milan on November 5, where former Blancos striker Alvaro Morata returned to haunt his erstwhile employers.
Lying smack-bang in the middle of the UCL rankings, Real’s 18th-placed standing would not even suffice for a seeded path to the playoffs, but the 15-time European champions appear to have flipped a switch since being put to the sword by Milan.
Wednesday’s visitors have won their last two La Liga matches by an aggregate scoreline of 7-0, hitting Osasuna for four without reply before the international break and easing to a 3-0 success over Leganes over the weekend, moving to within four points of a stuttering Barcelona at the top of the rankings.
Reeling in the Blaugrana is no longer Real’s priority for the moment, though, as Los Blancos endeavour to avoid an unwanted fate that they are yet to experience in the Champions League—losing three group stage/league phase games in a single season.
The holders’ recent memories of playing in front of the Kop are as fond as they could be, though, as they embarrassed Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool 5-2 in the 2022-23 UCL last 16 before completing the formalities with a 1-0 second-leg success in the Spanish capital.
Also read: Manchester United could see Frenchman retrun for the 3rd time
