Arne Slot is silencing the doubters: Liverpool look the real deal under new manager despite lack of transfer business
GOALThe Reds have yet to bring in any new players but are nonetheless shaping up well ahead of the 2024-25 campaign
Arne Slot will have Liverpool's full complement of players available to him for the first time on Tuesday morning. Remarkably, his will be the most notable new face in the group that assembles at the club's AXA Training centre at Kirkby, as the Reds remain the only Premier League team yet to make a signing during the summer transfer window.
Given Liverpool's campaign begins at Portman Road in less than two weeks' time, the tension is unsurprisingly rising around Anfield right now. The nagging fear is that the Dutchman's hopes of a successful first season in charge will be undermined by the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) and their perceived parsimony.
Restlessness hasn't yet given way to outrage, though. For one thing, Jurgen Klopp left the first-team squad in rude health, leading Liverpool back into the Champions League after a successful midfield overhaul last summer, while at the same time winning the Carabao Cup with 'kids'.
Secondly, new sporting director Richard Hughes said as soon as he arrived on Merseyside as part of a major overhaul of the club's sporting hierarchy that he expects a relatively quiet summer to come to a "crescendo" shortly before deadline day. Liverpool, then, are still likely to make at least a couple of meaningful moves between now and the end of the month.
However, the supporters' relatively restrained reaction to the lack of transfer activity also owes an awful lot to the Reds' near-perfect pre-season programme under their new coach, who couldn't have hoped for a better start to his quest to emulate his esteemed predecessor by turning doubters into believers.
