Liverpool's last-gasp wins are anything but a fluke

This season's Liverpool squad drawing comparisons to previous Manchester United teams

That's been the story for Liverpool this season: a give-and-go between unquestioned dominance and underdog mentality. The team has won every single one of its five competitive matches in 2025-26, but it has won all of them thanks to a late goal arriving in the 83rd minute or beyond.

It took an 88th-minute Federico Chiesa shot to dispatch Bournemouth; it took a 100th-minute wonder strike from teenager Rio Ngumoha to get past Newcastle. Liverpool's last-gasp win over Atleti in the Champions League wasn't the exception; it was the rule. No wonder Slot felt like he was getting too old for that kind of stress.

Whenever soccer teams rely upon chance late goals to succeed, conversations circle back to Premier League legend Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United teams of the 1990s, 2000s and beyond. Ferguson's United squads were so prolific in the dying stages of games that the media coined a phrase — Fergie Time — for anything that happened after the 80th minute. From the launch of the modern Premier League in 1992 to Ferguson's final game in charge in the summer of 2013, United won a whopping 16 league games in extra time.

Slot's Liverpool squad has earned plenty of comparisons to Ferguson's United, with many critics switching "Fergie Time" out for "Arne Time" on the back of his team's success. But Liverpool's late-game heroics are far from a United tribute act. 

Ferguson might've earned all the headlines for last-ditch winners, but it was actually Liverpool that quietly dominated that statistic throughout his coaching years. Remember United's 16 extra-time wins between 1992 and 2013? Liverpool racked up 24 in that same era — more than anyone else in the Premier League. It just didn't mythologize its efforts quite the way Fergie did. Perhaps it should have.

How is Liverpool winning at the last second so frequently?

Liverpool's ability to win crucial games at the last second isn't a fluke; it's the product of decades of dedicated practice. The team knows how to shift its mindset in the dying seconds of a game. 

Down a goal? Don't panic. Push forward, create probing wide runs, switch play effectively, seek out set pieces and get it done. That's exactly what Slot has been advocating for since joining Liverpool last season. 

"One of the things I would like us to do better in the second half of the season than the first half is to make a late goal winner," Slot said mere weeks after joining the team. "If we are coming in those situations, have one, two or three times a moment where we do score in the last minute of the game when we deserve it."

Done and done. Forget one, two or three times, as Slot's last-gasp Liverpool has already pulled it off on five occasions this season. Liverpool will return to Premier League action on Saturday, Sept. 20, against local rival Everton. While it will aim to win the game in regular time without jeopardy, it's better prepared than ever to live up to its late-goal heritage and snatch a sixth last-gasp win in a row.