Arne Slot channels his inner Jurgen Klopp to win over Kop and pass first big Liverpool test

After an understated start on the touchline Slot brought the passion during the gutsy victory over Chelsea

As a study in histrionic rage, Arne Slot’s injury-time flounce was instantly iconic. Enraged by referee John Brooks’s penalising of Darwin Núñez after he was agriculturally shoulder-barged by Renato Veiga, he turned on his heels and screamed at the ground beneath him, motioning to tear his hair out before realising he did not have any. 
For zero-to-100 frenzy, it was reminiscent of Jose Mourinho’s greatest hits, the Anfield equivalent of Basil Fawlty banging his fists on the tarmac when his anniversary plans went awry. 
If any doubts still lingered over the Dutchman’s ability to channel the passions of this place, they could not have been more comically dispelled.
Slot’s task in his three-and-a-half months at Liverpool has been to manoeuvre out of the giant shadow of his predecessor.
Consider that task accomplished, now that he has become the club’s only manager to win 10 of his first 11 games. And yet it is not just the tactical brilliance of Jürgen Klopp that he is emulating so much as the touchline theatrics. 
One uncertainty, when he arrived from Feyenoord, was whether Slot could replicate the German’s gift for emotional choreography. 
It was perhaps an unfair expectation, given Klopp’s status among the Premier League’s greatest thespians. But his miniature meltdown here proved he could lift a crowd by personality alone.
He galvanised his team just as effectively. Núñez’s overwrought protest at Brooks’s decision, slapping his cheeks in incredulity before lashing out at thin air, mirrored the amateur dramatics of his manager. 
It is an unenviable task for anybody to follow in the footsteps of a titan, but Slot is performing it with remarkable conviction. Already he can add Chelsea to Milan and Manchester United in his collection of early scalps, his connection with the Kop growing in intensity with every game. 
While it has been wise to reserve judgment until now, Liverpool’s one-point lead over Manchester City, with 15 league goals scored and only three conceded, tells its own story.
As his side chase a third consecutive Champions League victory this week at RB Leipzig, the case that they can contend for major honours this season grows stronger. 
Slot’s poise and consistency attests to the talent of Michael Edwards, Liverpool’s chief executive of football, for recruiting the right person at the right time. 
It is not just that Slot’s philosophy on the game, eschewing Klopp’s “heavy metal” excesses in favour of a more elegant, possession-based style, suits the club’s needs as they plot how to dethrone Pep Guardiola’s City. It is that he has won over supporters by offering them something of his soul.
This was the first time Slot had been shown a yellow card, not that fans cared a jot. Brooks, who objected to him frantically demanding why a penalty had not been awarded for Levi Colwill’s challenge on Mohamed Salah, booked him for remonstrating once too often. Not that Slot was inclined to make an issue of it. 
“I deserved it,” he said. “It came from three or four decisions that didn’t go our way.” In truth, Brooks rarely appeared in control of a game where tempers frequently frayed. The atmosphere of indignation appeared to fuel Slot, who spent much of the first half berating the fourth official.
When he first took over, Slot was scrupulously understated, conscious of the dangers of trying to imitate Klopp and the near-mythic status he enjoyed. But with success comes confidence, and you can sense now that he is trying to leave his own imprint. 
His template, to use his own description, is to create chaos when necessary while seeking to retain control of the ball. 
This display against an upwardly-mobile Chelsea might have been a little loose for his liking, with Moises Caicedo given the freedom to pull the strings in midfield, but the defence of their lead once Curtis Jones had propelled them clear was exemplary.
Such, perhaps, is the essence of prospective champions. One rogue home defeat to Nottingham Forest aside, Liverpool under Slot are distinguished by their measured tempo and their resilience at the back, with Caoimhin Kelleher rarely ruffled before or after Nicolas Jackson’s strike. 
The figure most likely to unsettle them was the VAR, whose frequent interventions left Slot increasingly agitated. Only when Salah dispatched the penalty after Jones was clipped by Colwill did he permit himself a quiet fist-pump.
Otherwise, he was anything but reserved, throwing all his pent-up energy into ensuring that Liverpool navigated this first serious test of their title credentials. 
While Slot made clear his disdain for the referee, he also reflected how these gripes with the officiating had inspired his players to work harder, to ensure that they had the final say. 
He began this most daunting of jobs with a blank canvas. But he is painting it, to the joy of his former sceptics, in ever more vivid brushstrokes.