By his own admission, Arne Slot hasn’t had the most daunting of starts to life as Liverpool head coach in terms of the opposition that he’s faced.
On Sunday, that will all change as the Reds go head-to-head with Arsenal, a team they’ll be hoping to join in the Premier League title race this season.
The Merseysiders will go to the Emirates Stadium four points clear of their opponents, so they’ll still be ahead of the Gunners regardless of the result in north London next weekend, but a victory would open up a sizeable gap to Mikel Arteta’s side by the quarterway mark of the campaign.
In many instances, a draw away to a title contender would be viewed as a point gained rather than two lost. However, there’s a tantalising opportunity for Slot and Liverpool to make a serious statement if they can land a direct blow on a positional rival.
In contrast to the thrill-a-minute ride of Jurgen Klopp’s reign, the Reds have looked more controlled under their new head coach. It’s an approach which has served them very well so far, but Sunday’s fixture represents the kind of dilemma that one might get from a game of poker.
Will Slot roll the dice and go for broke?
Does the Dutchman lean on the side of caution and seek first and foremost to preserve the status quo in a fixture where a point would be an acceptable result, or does he roll the dice and gamble on the prospective jackpot of a potentially season-defining victory?
Slot isn’t exactly a negative coach in the mould of a Jose Mourinho, but he does appear to be a pragmatist. Liverpool will target a win, of course, but it could be a case of carefully plotting their route to three points rather than swashbuckling through Arsenal.
It’s now been just over two years since the Reds last beat the Gunners or Manchester City in the league, and while they lost only one of those four head-to-heads in 2023/24, it’s a sequence that they’ll want (and probably need) to address if they’re to lift the trophy at Anfield next May.
Circumstances have dealt LFC a relatively kind hand next Sunday as William Saliba will be suspended after his controversial red card at Bournemouth, while Martin Odegaard and possibly Bukayo Saka will also be sidelined through injury.
A draw certainly wouldn’t be a bad result for Liverpool at the Emirates, but if they can strike the right balance between risk and reward and come away with all three points, it’d send out the very clear message that they’re in this Premier League title race to stay.