. We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of action
Top of the Champions League, top of the Premier League, Arne Slot’s start to his Liverpool tenure is beginning to shake off those doubters who pointed out the man succeeding Jürgen Klopp had yet to face anyone good yet. A draw with Arsenal has been followed by defeats of Brighton and Leverkusen, with Tuesday’s 4-0 victory over the latter the best performance yet. Liverpool first took the sting out of Leverkusen’s pressing, and then went in for the kill. Luis Díaz scored his first Liverpool hat-trick, a reminder of the high quality of a player too often underrated. Xabi Alonso was the coach most heavily linked with replacing Klopp yet chose to stay at Leverkusen, who are bearing the scars of last season’s record-breaking achievements. The official word is that Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes was a Slot fan from the start. Slot’s Liverpool, who pair patience with quick, deadly counters, handed Leverkusen a lesson. The new manager’s confidence is so high he managed to negotiate the raucous CBS studio gang with a couple of quips that cut Jamie Carragher down to size.
Sporting
Manchester United are not in this season’s Champions League but Tuesday was perhaps the club’s best night in the competition since they downed Paris Saint-Germain in 2019. It was a night to live vicariously through the performance of the team coached by their incoming manager, Rúben Amorim. He said tchau to Estádio José Alvalade with a crushing 4-1 win over Manchester City that showed off his chops. Initially, Sporting had to suffer as City dominated possession. Then, thanks to the speed of their counterattack, and the precision of their pressing, they ran in four goals, forcing City’s ragged defenders to concede two penalties. “It was written, it had to be like this,” said Amorim. In the UK, TV viewers had to listen as City ultra, Oasis’s Noel …
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