Back in 26 January, Jürgen Klopp announced that he will step-down as Liverpool manager at the end of the season, set to take charge of the Reds for the 491st and final time against Wolves a week on Sunday.
The Reds did get their hands on the EFL Cup a month later, but will not be adding anymore silverware to their cabinet, having been dumped out the FA Cup by Manchester United, the Europa League at the hands of Atalanta, while simultaneously fading away in the title race.
So Klopp will depart having won eight major honours, a tally only bettered by Bob Paisley (20), Bill Shankly (9), and Sir Kenny Dalglish (9).
But Klopp meant so much more than just the trophies he delivered, culturally embedding himself in the city, becoming an honorary Scouser and speaking out against social issues, both within football and beyond.
He led the Reds to three Champions League Finals in five seasons, thwarted by Real Madrid in both Kyiv and Paris, but delivering a sixth European crown against Tottenham in Madrid.
His reign produced so many amazing moments: Dejan Lovren downing Dortmund, Divock Origi’s derby winner, Sadio Mané in Munich, the 4-0 against Barcelona. Alisson’s header at the Hawthorns, the 5-0 win at Old Trafford, the 7-0 embarrassment of Man United, a cup double and so many more besides.
Most-importantly of all though, Klopp was the man to deliver Liverpool’s first league title in 30 years, the club’s longest-ever draught, still the only man since Antonio Conte in 2017 to triumph over the Man City machine.
Words cannot describe how important a figure Klopp is and always will be for the hundreds of million of Liverpool supporters worldwide, so how on earth does someone go about following that?
Alongside Klopp’s departure, as well as that of assistant Pep Lijnders, it’s all change at Liverpool this summer.
Most-notably, two years after departing the club, Michael Edwards is back; he was previously employed at sporting director, accredited with a lot of the signings that led to Liverpool’s success, returning in a new role CEO of Football, now a Fenway Sports Group employee, taking on more of an overarching role.
So, Edwards alongside Richard Hughes, who is the new sporting director, moving over from Bournemouth, have led the search for Klopp’s successor.
Before we go into that specifically, we want to set out our four categories outlining the types of manager a club will hire.
The CV manager
José Mourinho going to Spurs; they’re desperate to win trophies, he always wins trophies........ except at Tottenham!
Paul Warne at Derby County; every single season Warne has been in League One he’s got his team promoted and, guess what, Derby were promoted.
Sarina Wiegman with England; the FA wanted to the Lionesses to win tournaments, so they hired the best manager out there.
Has a connection to the club manager
This one is pretty self-explanatory.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær at Manchester United, Frank Lampard at Chelsea, Ronald Koeman at Barcelona and Alan Shearer at Newcastle..... ok maybe this list suggests this isn’t the best idea!
Up-and-coming manager
This is when a manager is performing well, so a club further up the food chain believes they can replicate this success at a higher level.
Ange Postecoglou joining Spurs last summer is the perfect example of this, considering he’d only coached in the A-League, J.League and Scottish Premiership beforehand.
We have no idea what we’re doing manager
Sam Allardyce at Leeds (remember that?), I know I can’t believe that was only a year ago either!
Wayne Rooney at Birmingham this season, he had 15 games in charge, which is 11 more than Big Sam at Leeds in fairness, also fits into this category. In short, don’t do this.
Klopp had reportedly informed FSG of his impending departure back in October, giving the club plenty of time to plan.
Edwards, Hughes and the rest made Xabi Alonso their number one target and he appeared to be the perfect man, having made 210 appearances for the Reds while, in his first full season as a manager, his Bayer Leverkusen team are still unbeaten after 48 matches in all competition, on course for an invincible treble.
In many ways, he fit into all three categories, CV manager, has a connection to the club as well as being an up-and-coming coach, thereby, quite literally, ticking all the boxes.
At the same time, two of Alonso’s other former clubs Bayern Munich and Real Madrid were also courting him before, to the surprise of many, he announced on 29 March that he will be staying in Leverkusen.
That very same day, Rúben Amorim then became the clear front-runner but, after publicly flirting with Liverpool, Chelsea and West Ham, he has apologies and subsequently committed his future to Sporting.
So who next? Well it can’t be Steven Gerrard, as he’s pledged his allegiance to boyhood club...checks Wikipedia.... Al-Ettifaq!
This where Arne Slot comes in.
Liverpool have agreed a €13 million compensation fee with Feyenoord, effectively paying out the final two years of his contract, and Slot has spoken publicly about his desire to move to Merseyside, saying goodbye to his De Kuip faithful following Sunday’s 5-0 hammering of PEC Zwolle, despite the fact they have two games to go.
So, is Slot the right man for the job, or will he go the same way as another bald, Dutch manager operating at an historically successful club based in the North West who wear red?
Using the categories set out above, Slot very much falls into the up-and-coming manager category.
At 45, only six current Premier League managers, are younger: Mikel Arteta (42), Andoni Iraola (41), Roberto De Zerbi (44), Vincent Kompany (38), Rob Edwards (41) and Gary O’Neil (40), how may of those are still Premier League managers come 20 May remains to be seen.
Slot has never played or coached outside the Netherlands, his first managerial gig coming with Cambuur, who he led to third in the Eerste Divisie, denied promotion via the play-offs, whilst also reaching the club’s first-ever Dutch Cup semi-final, knocking out Ajax en route.
This attracted attention from AZ Alkmaar, who fired hired him to become John van den Brom’s assistant, before taking over as manager in 2019, with the Cheeseheads joint-top of the Eredivisie when the pandemic struck and the season was expunged, denied the title on goal-difference.
Later in 2020, Slot took over as Feyenoord’s head coach, leading them to the inaugural Europa Conference League in 2022, winning the league title in 2023 and the KNVB Beker last month, beating NEC Nijmegen 1-0 in that final in April.
Feyenoord have been unable to retain this season’s Eredivisie but through little fault of their own; they’re on course to surpass last season’s points tally, just that PSV are going to break the single-season points record.
Liverpool are not the first non-Dutch club to have shown an interest in Slot.
To varying degrees, Leeds United, Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Tottenham have all tried to hire him, with Slot publicly turning Spurs down in favour of staying in Rotterdam last summer.
He has bided his time and picked the perfect club, which Liverpool might just be.
This will have been a data-driven hire, not least because Will Spearman, club’s current director of research, who has a Harvard physics Doctorate, was involved, and the proof is in the numbers.
Using data from an article by Ryan O’Hanlon of ESPN, Slot’s Feyenoord play very similarly to Klopp’s Liverpool.
Possessions per match: Liverpool 96. Feyenoord 94.
% of passes completed by opponents: Liverpool 77%. Feyenoord 74%.
Distance that average pass travels: Liverpool 17.1 meters. Feyenoord 17.2 meters.
Average rate at which the team moves the ball upfield: Liverpool 1.26 meters-per-second. Feyenoord 1.33 meters-per-second.
Put in layman’s terms, Slot’s team likes possession, but not for the sake of it, presses high and plays more direct, long-passes than other elite teams.
On top of the stylistic similarities, these two clubs both currently find themselves in similar financial positions, relative to their respective competitors.
According to football finance analyst Kieran O’Connor, @SwissRamble on Twitter:
Feyenoord spent around €48.2m on wages in season 22/23, compared to PSV Eindhoven’s €55.2m, while Ajax’s wage bill was over double at €109.4m.
This has played out on the field; since 2000, Ajax have won nine Eredivisie titles and this year will be PSV’s 11th, while Feyenoord’s triumph under Slot was just their second since the start of the new millennium.
This is similar to where Liverpool find themselves, unable to spend on the same level at Manchester City, therefore needing to nail recruitment and maximise the most from the talent they do have with good coaching.
So, will Slot be a success at Liverpool?
Well, he’s unquestionably making a big jump, having never signed a player for more then €9 million, while he has never coached a player earning more than €40,000 a week, approximately 11% of what Mohamed Salah earns for example.
Slot has only ever coached six games in the Champions League, a figure that’s guaranteed to more than double following the competition’s expansion, losing four of these six matches, including all three away.
As soon as Liverpool lose a game next season, whether that’s in week one or on Boxing Day, the pitchforks will be out, labelling him a fraud and accusing him of not knowing ‘our league’, as Big Ange can testify.
Regardless of who they hire, following Klopp was always going to be a, potentially, impossible job, as it’s probably better to be the guy after the guy after THE GUY, Slot aiming to avoid being the David Moyes at Manchester United or Unai Emery at Arsenal in that equation.
When Klopp arrived in 2015, the Reds had finished in the top four once in six seasons, their sole silverware coming when Sir Kenny Dalglish’s side, who’d go on to finish eighth, beat Championship outfit Cardiff City on penalties to capture the Carling Cup; dark times.
Now, the club is in a very different place, finishing lower than fourth only once in the past eight seasons, winning a title, reaching three Champions League Finals as well as picking up three domestic cups in the last three years.
When Klopp came in, the only way was up, but for Slot to succeed, he probably has to surpass Klopp’s achievements, which is probably an impossible task.
If that’s where you’re setting the bar, then Slot will inevitably fail; if you’re more realistic and are expecting the Reds to be regulars in latter portion the Champions League knockout stages, win the occasional cup and be serious title contenders some of the time, then this hire might just work.
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