Arne Slot: Why Liverpool are appointing Feyenoord’s fiery head coach to succeed Jurgen Klopp

Slot’s playing career was far from illustrious, though according to his former team-mates he seemed to view it as an extended precursor to his coaching journey anyway. He started out at PEC Zwolle, eventually breaking into the first team and helping them to the second-tier title in 2002.

That earned him a move to NAC Breda, where he spent five years before winding down his career with a stint at Sparta Rotterdam and an emotional return to Zwolle, where he clinched a second league title. Those two trophies were the only major silverware he secured as a player.

However, despite the languid attacking midfielder’s limited success, his coaching brain was already kicking into gear. Former team-mate Bram van Polen told NOS last year: “Arne was constantly working on the boys in the team during training, already clearly a trainer in the making.”

Another ex-colleague, Edwin de Graaf, concurred during a recent interview with The Athletic: “Some players you can see are going to be coaches. I also played with Alfred Schreuder (the former Ajax manager) and both him and Slot… nobody is surprised now they’re both coaches. He would ask the coach why they were using certain tactics. And in the dressing room, he would talk to the group about (for example) a way of pressing or defending.

“He would ask: ‘Why were we doing it this way? Would it be better to do it this way?’. He would make suggestions to his coaches. But he would do it in such a good way. He wouldn’t do it with an attitude: he would ask the coach: ‘What do you think about this?’. He would also very quickly see what the opponents were doing.”

Zwolle evidently recognised this potential in Slot, immediately offering him a youth-coaching position when he hung up his playing boots in 2013.

After moving to Cambuur’s senior team in an interim capacity a few years later, he was handed his first big break when John van den Brom hired him as an assistant at AZ Alkmaar.

Two years later, he stepped up to the number-one role and made a seriously impressive start to life in the hot seat. When the 2019-20 season was curtailed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, AZ were only trailing leaders Ajax on goal difference with nine games left to play.

The prior campaign, Slot’s side had finished a distant 28 points adrift of Erik ten Hag and Co, which demonstrates the transformative impact his promotion to head coach had on the club.

His second full season wasn’t quite as impressive, with Ajax running away with the league, but Slot still led AZ to a third-place finish, with the Cheese Farmers – what a terrific nickname, by the way – ending up just a solitary point behind a far more expensively assembled PSV Eindhoven squad.

With his stock rising, Slot was chosen as the man to reignite some passion at Feyenoord following two years of uninspiring football and results under Dick Advocaat. Despite losing top scorer Steven Berghuis to Ajax, the early signs were good.

Slot guided Feyenoord to third in his maiden campaign, with his side scoring 10 more Eredivisie goals than they managed in Advocaat’s last season, while conceding two less. They also reached the Europa Conference League final, where they would eventually be vanquished by Jose Mourinho’s Roma.

“Slot transformed Feyenoord completely when he took over in 2021. Feyenoord were often called a ‘sleeping giant’, but that is no longer the case these days,” Noel Korteweg, who covers Feyenoord for Dutch football website Voetbalzone, told GOAL.

These exploits would earn him the Rinus Michels Award, given to the best coach in the Netherlands that year, though the following campaign was even better. After an extraordinary revamp in the 2022 summer transfer window, with a string of first-teamers including Tyrell Malacia, Luis Sinisterra and Marcos Senasi all departing, it soon became clear Slot had somehow managed to improve his squad while making a sizeable profit through player sales.

“Apart from maybe 3 or 4 starters, the entire XI left. They then brought in like 15 new players and everyone expected that season to be a transition season,” Korteweg added.

But it was anything but with the arrivals of David Hancko, Quinten Timber and Santiago Gimenez having a near-instantaneous effect. Feyenoord thrashed Vitesse 5-2 on the opening day and this set the tone for one of the best seasons of the club’s modern era, with Slot’s charges romping to the league title, after which he attracted strong interest from Premier League sides.

He decided to stay, though, and Feyenoord might have finished top of the pile again this term, if not for PSV Eindhoven being basically perfect in the Eredivisie. Slot’s side did at least get one over the runaway league leaders in the KNVB Cup, beating them in the round of 16 before going on to lift the trophy after beating NEC in an eventful final.

“Feyenoord-fans are very sad that Slot seems to be leaving, but I think that they all know that he kind of outgrew Feyenoord a bit and can’t do any better than he did in the last three seasons. Because Slot transformed the club completely, everyone is very curious to see if Feyenoord will stay successful after he leaves,” Korteweg said.

Slot’s results speak for themselves, but this is not the only reason why he has quickly emerged as one of the most sought-after coaches in Europe. Perhaps even more impressive than the titles he’s won at Feyenoord is how he’s managed to completely overhaul the club’s playing style.

Under Advocaat, the squad was largely encouraged to adopt a safety-first approach. Slot has a very different way of viewing football. A disciple of Pep Guardiola, he has made Feyenoord extremely attacking in recent years as evidenced by the significant increase in goals scored since he took over.

In fact, he even cited Guardiola’s City and Klopp’s Liverpool as “beautiful examples” of the style he likes to play. “The goal is not to play offensively, but I believe this is the way to win a lot of games,” he told NOS back in 2021.

Usually setting up in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, both full-backs push high and wide, with the two nominal wingers often moving inside to help create devastating rotations in the middle. Players are encouraged to take on their opposite numbers too, with no Eredivisie side registering a higher progressive carrying distance this season.

Out of possession, Feyenoord are similarly eye-catching. They press high, with Slot’s side making far more attacking-third tackles since he succeeded Advocaat. However, if they cannot win the ball, they are well-drilled enough to retreat into almost 6-3-1 formation, making it very difficult for their opponents to find space.

Clearly then, Slot seems to suit Liverpool from a tactical standpoint, with his intended style resembling Klopp’s best Anfield teams. However, ideas are all well and good. At a club as big as Liverpool, possessing the ability to clearly communicate these concepts, handle egos and deal with pressure are probably more important.

Encouragingly for Reds’ fans, there has been no shortage of admirers praising Slot’s straight-talking man-management skills over the years. Former Feyenoord captain Jan Toornstra, who the 45-year-old controversially dropped in his first full season at the helm, praised his ability to “touch” and “motivate” players. Slot’s former Zwolle manager Jan Everse agrees, previously telling NOS: “Arne is diplomatic. He tells what he needs to tell the group and doesn’t beat around the bush.”

Slot’s unconventional training methods have been lauded too. According to The Telegraph, at his first Feyenoord session he played clips from the 2021 Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester City, asking his players why there were so few chances being created despite the abundance of world-class attackers on the field.

The footage was shown to make a point about how important pressing is in the modern game, with Slot apparently going on to highlight the lack of running Feyenoord had done under Advocaat compared to their Dutch rivals.

The rondo is king in his training sessions too, much like it is with Guardiola. Slot adds a novel twist to his approach, though, instructing the squad to only ever take one touch, as well as forbidding the ball from returning to the previous passer.

The aim of this is to encourage better awareness of where everyone is on the field, and it’s got results, with Slot’s side increasing their average possession in each of his three seasons in charge.

Player development is also pivotal to Slot’s approach. Feyenoord’s budget is dwarfed by that of Ajax and PSV, and their ability to consistently punch above their weight is largely down to their manager’s magic touch. Slot’s knack for improving players is maybe best shown by Gimenez.

The Mexican arrived at the club as a one-goal-in-four-games striker in the Liga MX. This season, he’s managed 21 strikes in just 29 games and is attracting admiring glances from some of the biggest clubs on the planet.

It all sounds very promising from a Liverpool perspective, but there are a few lingering doubts over whether Slot would be a success at Anfield.

“He’s done very well at Feyenoord, winning the league and cup as well as getting to the European final in 2022, which was really good,” Rian Rosendaal, senior editor at Dutch football website Voetbalzone said.

“On the downside, he’s following in the footsteps of a legend and managing a huge club with all the media. That’s going to be a real test for him – a bit like when Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger stepped down.”

And this will be the thing that Liverpool are thinking about most deeply. Is Slot a big enough personality to handle the brightest of spotlights? The uncertain futures of Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez will be tricky situations to deal with too.

In his defence, he’s never been shy to take on the media and defend his work, with his no-nonsense communication style extending to his dealings with journalists.

“He’s quite vocal, also on the touchline. It doesn’t really suit him as he’s normally a down to earth guy. He’ll find that dealing with the media in England will be much tougher,” Rosendaal added.

After being compared to Jose Mourinho following an animated touchline display in his side’s cup triumph over PSV Eindhoven, Slot reacted strongly. “That’s really embarrassing that you say that,” he shot back.

“Then I would like to ask you to look back at the images, because I just stood very quietly on the sidelines. Not more than that. At the end I just asked if it was a throw-in or a free kick, in peace. Because that makes a big difference in how my players have to position themselves.”

He refused to back down when confronted by Diego Simeone in 2021 too. Following a surprisingly-heated friendly, El Cholo pushed Slot – but the Dutchman simply laughed it off.

Reflecting on the incident before the two sides reacquainted themselves in the Champions League group stages this year, he recalled: “At that moment, at the end of the match, I turned to Simeone to tell him how passionate he was even in a friendly match. Then, he misinterpreted the smile I had at that moment and pushed me. This says a lot about him, how easily he gets irritated and frustrated. It doesn’t matter who he is in front of, he is like that, I don’t think he has anything against me.”

He’s rattled Mourinho in the past too, with the Roma boss responding to Slot’s comments about his side’s ‘boring’ playing style by screeching: “You watch Napoli but you should watch us. You should watch us, not Napoli, not Napoli,” at the Dutchman following Roma’s progression to the Europa League quarter-final at Slot’s expense last season.

He was similarly ballsy ahead of a Champions League meeting with Lazio earlier this campaign, saying: “The grass is not mown excessively short. We saw that yesterday during training. It doesn’t matter for the match, but when you play the Champions League you generally expect a great field, like in De Kuip, and this is not that. But it’s good enough to play on.”

All of these incidents are worth mentioning because they paint a picture of a manager with a big personality, not afraid to ruffle a few feathers in pursuit of his ideas around football. Following Klopp will be a near-impossible job, but one thing’s is for sure. Slot will not pull any punches in search of success.