Never in the history of English football had a team begun with a more expensive double act on the bench. But perhaps Arne Slot, while his irritation at some of the references to Liverpool’s summer spending has been camouflaged by a smile, illustrated his early success came without buying.
As Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz’s initial taste of the Merseyside derby was as substitutes, Liverpool owed victory to Ryan Gravenberch, the first flagship triumph of Slot’s reign, a player who was not purchased for a nine-figure sum by his compatriot but inherited and reinvented.
