Arne Slot to be added to iconic Liverpool banner – joins Shankly, Klopp & Co.

Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish, Rafa Benitez, Jurgen Klopp and now Arne Slot, the figures who come next season will adorn one of the Kop’s most iconic banners.

The Kop is one of the most amazing and unique sights in football, with flags and banners paying tribute to the past and present as sound booms from behind them.

One of the most iconic banners includes the portraits of Shankly, Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish, Benitez and Klopp, which you can see before home games at the front of the Kop.

It celebrates and recognises their achievements of winning a first division title or European Cup, or both in many cases, and belongs to the Irish Kop, an online forum set up in 2003.

But next summer it will also feature Slot, confirmed by The Athletic‘s James Pearce after his chat with Paul Larkin, who is behind the Irish Kop.

“Some people think it’s too soon, but the criteria has always been that if you either win the league or the European Cup, you go on it,” Larkin told the Athletic.

“The majority who help out with the banner think we should get it updated and I agree with them. I’ve asked a graphic designer to come up with some new designs.

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“Then we’ll pick one and get a new version made over in the United States in time for August. Slot deserves it.”

Having fulfilled the criteria, it is a rite of passage for Slot even if it has come earlier than anyone expected with the Premier League title delivered in his first season.

There has long been debate over whether Gerard Houllier should feature considering his success and influence at the club, but he, sadly, never lifted any of the ‘big two’ trophies for the Reds.

The banner, in its first iteration without Klopp, was first on the Kop during the 2009/10 season and was based on a painting by local artist David Neve, who was inspired by the image of the Five Heads of Communism.

Klopp was added in the summer of 2019 and now six years later, it will undergo another makeover to reflect Slot’s incredible achievement.