![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_Wolverhampton-Wanderers-v-Liverpool-FC-Premier-League.jpg\")
Mark Lawrenson has picked out three key Liverpool players(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\nEXCLUSIVE: Mark Lawrenson scored when Liverpool beat Tottenham at Anfield to win the 1982 title and has picked out the six players he feels have been key this seasonMark Lawrenson has picked out three key Liverpool players(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Liverpool<\/a> need just a point against Tottenham at Anfield on Sunday to win the title – and Mark Lawrenson knows all about that. Lawrenson was part of Bob Paisley\u2019s 1982 team, which beat Spurs at Anfield in the penultimate game of the season to claim the Reds\u2019 13th title. He headed home the equaliser past Ray Clemence, on his first return to Anfield, before laying on the second for Kenny Dalglish before Ronnie Whelan bagged the third in the 3-1 win. Lawrenson had become Liverpool<\/a>\u2019s record signing – and Britain\u2019s most-expensive defender – the previous summer following his \u00a3900,000 move from Brighton<\/a> and says that day was key in the team\u2019s development. \u201cIt was important because I think they were six of us, who hadn\u2019t won a league,\u201d he told Mirror<\/a> Sport.<\/p>\n \u201cMyself, Rushie [Ian Rush], Sammy [Lee], Brucie [Grobbelaar], Ronnie, Craig [Johnston]. Bob made the decision to ring the changes, to bring in younger blood with us. But you still had 17 or 18 internationals, all trying to get into the team, and that remained the driving force.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawrenson played in midfield against Tottenham<\/a> and says Arne Slot<\/a>\u2019s engine room of Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis MacAllister has been fundamental to their record-equalling 20th title success. \u201cI think they\u2019re the best three trio in the league,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019re any better and they hardly get injured.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Jamie Carragher names two transfers Liverpool must make due to Arne Slot’s ‘lack of trust’<\/a>READ MORE: Crystal Palace send three-word message to Liverpool after doing Reds title favour<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIf you remember, when we started the season, everyone was going \u2018Gravenberch, he didn\u2019t do very well last season\u2019 and \u2018where does he play?\u2019. The three of them have worked it out between themselves and that engine room for me has just been the best. \u201cThen, you chuck Mo [Salah\u2019s] goals into that, Virgil\u2019s [van Dijk] defending, Alisson and that\u2019s why they\u2019re going to win the league.\u201d Lawrenson also praised Slot for having the intelligence not to rip up Jurgen Klopp<\/a>\u2019s squad, even though they tailed off in last season\u2019s title race to finish third. \u201cThe thing with the manager is he\u2019s gone in there and he\u2019s looked at what he\u2019s got and thought \u2018do you know what? We\u2019ve got a real chance here, I don\u2019t have to make too many changes\u2019. He hasn\u2019t signed anyone apart from [Federico] Chiesa and he\u2019s just done little things. It\u2019s Klopp\u2019s team, isn\u2019t it? \u201cHe\u2019s got a nice way about him, the players obviously like him, you can just tell. He\u2019s basically everyone\u2019s pal, generally he\u2019s an intelligent fella who\u2019s looked at it and thought I can work with these players.\u201d<\/p>\n Liverpool have cruised to the title, having been top since October, in contrast to the 1981-82 campaign when they languishing in 12th after losing at home to Manchester City<\/a> on Boxing<\/a> Day. Paisley responded by stripping Phil Thompson of the captaincy and handing it to Graeme Souness and Liverpool won 20 of their next 24 league games to win the title against Spurs. \u201cAfter that defeat to Man City, that was the only time I heard Joe Fagan go absolutely mad at us,\u201d said Lawrenson. \u201cJoe tore into us, saying he was sick and tired of all this, we should be doing it this way.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the kick up the backside we needed and we went on an amazing run. At half-time against Spurs, we were 1-0 down to an absolute worldie from Glenn Hoddle, but Bob was calm, saying Spurs will run out of steam. \u201cI scored with a looping header past Clem and I didn\u2019t see it go in. I then played a ball over my head for Kenny to run on to and score before Ronnie smashed in another one near the end, and that was it!\u201d<\/p>\n Join our new WhatsApp community <\/a>and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our <\/strong>Privacy Notice.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Mark Lawrenson scored when Liverpool beat Tottenham at Anfield to win the 1982 title and has picked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,763,26302,10652,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-48385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-liverpool-fc","13":"tag-mark-lawrenson","14":"tag-tottenham-hotspur-fc","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114396612796754579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Arne](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1745553670_215_0_Liverpool-v-West-Ham-United-Premier-League-Anfield.jpg\")
Arne Slot is on the brink of winning the Premier League title(Image: PA)<\/p>\n