Arne Sloth has Liverpool off to a hot start in the 2024/25 Premier League season, and coming up to the November international fixtures, you really have to say that the Reds are clear favorites to win the league title for the first time in five years.
Liverpool have lost just one game this season – to a breakout Nottingham Forest side, of all teams – and they boast the best goalkeeper, best center back, best right back, best midfielder, best left winger, and best overall player in the English top flight.
But do they have the best manager in the Premier League? What Slot has done through his first three months on the job is nothing short of remarkable, because he’s not only filled the shoes of one of the greatest managers of this era in Jurgen Klopp, but, if anything, he’s been an upgrade on the current Red Bull executive.
For years, the answer to the question of the best manager in the Premier League has been a pretty obvious one, because perennial champion Pep Guardiola only had one real competitor for the crown and that was the lone manager who could knock him off his pedestal in Klopp.
Slot has the better of Guardiola so far this season, but it’s hard sell to proclaim Slot the best manager in the Premier League over a guy who has dominated world football for more than a decade.
But Slot is comfortably ahead of the other managers in the Premier League. Unai Emery has been excellent for Aston Villa so far, but Slot outcoached him with ease this past weekend, killing the Spanish manager on the counter repeatedly.
Outside of Emery, Slot doesn’t have any competitors in the Premier League. Ange Postecoglou and Enzo Maresca are good but flawed, Fabian Hurzeler is excellent but not quite as impressive as Slot, and Mikel Arteta has to prove he isn’t being overrated.
That means just within his own league, Slot is second to only Guardiola. And if we open it up to the rest of European football, only Hansi Flick can say that he’s above Slot.
Flick is, like Slot, having a dream start to life with his new team, as Barcelona are on pace to break goal-scoring records and are in command of La Liga with much-improved displays in the Champions League.
Before Barcelona, Flick won a treble with Bayern Munich right off the bat, and his teams are so dominant, including this Barcelona one, that he’s honestly even surpassed Guardiola.
Outside of him, there are only three other managers who can be placed above Slot. Carlo Ancelotti has the best resumé of anyone in Europe, even above Guardiola, as he is a machine in the Champions League, fresh off a title win with Real Madrid,
However, I’d take Slot over Ancelotti. Real Madrid have been so poor this season defensively, and Carlo hasn’t managed to get things right with Kylian Mbappe on board, nor has he figured out to way to utilize promising talents Endrick and Arda Guler.
Meanwhile, Slot is getting the most out of Ryan Gravenberch, Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, and all the other great talents that Klopp couldn’t even have firing on all cylinders last season.
Simone Inzaghi and Xabi Alonso are more underrated than Ancelotti but just as compelling. Inzaghi has turned Inter into perennial Scudetto contenders and even took the Nerazzuri to a Champions League Final.
Meanwhile, Alonso was undefeated for Bayer Leverkusen last season, quickly turning Die Werkself from the team everyone joked about never being good enough to win titles into an actual European juggernaut.
The thing is, Leverkusen already look dead to rights in the title race and haven’t made any progress this season. Meanwhile, Inter have been disappointing, too, and the only thing Inzaghi has on Slot is the fact that he’s been a coach in a top five league for longer.
Arne Slot is crushing it for Liverpool right now, and I can only say that, at this very moment, Guardiola and Flick are the better manager. That places Slot in third, and if you want to rank Ancelotti above him on legacy, then, at worst, Slot is still a top-five manager in the world even in just his first season with a big club.
