Arne Slot did not play a single game in the Champions League. Photo: PA/Richard Sellers
The huge inconvenience that accompanies a great idea The principle of succession planning is that the moment a legendary manager decides to leave, there is no guarantee that a preferred successor will be ready to take his place.
< p>Xabi Alonso has made it clear to Liverpool that after just 18 months as manager, despite the triumph of this title season, he does not feel ready to leave Bayer Leverkusen. Ultimately, Ruben Amorim was deemed too committed to a 3-4-3 system to be viable. Roberto De Zerbi didn't fit in either. Luciano Spalletti should have been the first to leave the road for the Euro with Italy. Julian Nagelsmann remained in Germany. Thomas Tuchel was never considered. Ernesto Valverde may have been a temporary solution for a couple of years – but temporary until what?
Arne Slot is no placeholder – the club's revamped hierarchy is firmly behind their man. They believe they have appointed a manager who meets all their most important criteria and whose personality will emerge over time as the man capable of taking on this world-famous sporting giant with local roots. Risk? Sure, but Liverpool have chosen their outfits accordingly. However, another 24 hours from Saturday and it can be said that Jurgen Klopp's successor is getting easier.
Liverpool have had simpler managerial appointments: Rafael Benitez in 2004 or Klopp in 2015. Benitez was one of the two brightest young managers in Europe when he was appointed, a UEFA Cup winner, a double La Liga winner and still the last to rescue Diego Simeone and win the Spanish title with a club outside the big two. Klopp did something similar, challenging Bayern Munich's hegemony in Germany and also reaching the Champions League final.
The slot is not in this league when it comes to reputation. However, it is now more difficult for young managers to knock down the door, as Benitez and Jose Mourinho did 20 years ago and even Klopp about a decade later. Mourinho won the Champions League and UEFA Cup with Porto before being appointed by Chelsea in 2004. If this was an amazing feat then, it is unthinkable now.
Rafael Benitez has already won the UEFA Cup, as well as two league titles with Valencia when he was appointed head coach of Liverpool. Photo: Reuters/Ian Hodgson
Slot is 45, a year older than Benitez was when he joined Liverpool. As well as playing at home in Holland, Slot reached the UEFA Europa League final in 2022, where he was beaten by Mourinho's Roma. However, the huge gap between the richest clubs and the rest of the clubs, including the Dutch, prevents coaches from having the same influence across Europe as their predecessors once did.
Erik ten Hag reached the semi-finals of the Champions League with Ajax – enough to establish his reputation and, along with three Dutch titles, propel him to the Manchester United job. Domestically and in Europe, Alonso has excelled at Leverkusen on only the fourth-highest salary in the Bundesliga, but he is the exception rather than the rule. The English, Spanish, German and French titles and the Champions League are typically won by a small group of clubs, often managed by an even smaller group of managers.
Notably, on this basis, winning the Europa League can be very beneficial for your career. Three of the last four seasons' managerial winners have gone on to secure Premier League jobs. In short, Premier League clubs are eagerly seeking comparative evidence that up-and-coming managers can succeed in the home game – and when they do, opportunities arise.
Slota's playing style and his successes With Feyenoord he has had success so far, but his timing has been impeccable. Having turned down Tottenham last summer, 12 months later he was in charge of an admittedly limited pool of players for an even bigger job.
In terms of perception, Slot is fundamentally not helped by the difficulties that previous Dutch managers have had to endure in trying to carry the success of the Dutch game into the Premier League. Guus Hiddink, Louis van Gaal and Ronald Koeman had already distinguished themselves outside of Holland to varying degrees by the time they arrived, and these three are perhaps the most successful. After that, Ten Hag, Martin Jol and, even further back, Ruud Gullit are not undisputed hits. Rene Meulensteen, Dick Advocaat and Frank de Boer struggled through the full 38-game season.
Erik ten Hag struggled tried to replicate the football his team Ajax played in the Premier League. Photo: Getty Images/Michael Regan
The modern revolution in data analysis and even the events of the last three years make all these past appointments much more spontaneous decisions than the kind of research one would expect from Liverpool with the Slot. The club, along with Brentford and Brighton, is at the forefront of English football when it comes to improving its own data model. Which, among other things, can provide a valuable comparison of the performance of players and coaches in different leagues.
There is always a temptation in some quarters to ridicule this approach – that old mistrust of innovation that is the hallmark of English football. Some clubs have, of course, applied the data in unrealistic ways. But a way of successfully analyzing a game that removes many of the variables of chance and luck to scrutinize the core strengths of the player and coach is a remarkable step forward. It's also not as if clubs weren't making bad management appointments 100 years before analytics became possible.
If Slote passed these tests, then the test of his credentials would be strict indeed. He will be supported by Liverpool's new hierarchy: sporting director Richard Hughes, as well as Michael Edwards, who will now take on the role that Mike Gordon, chairman of Fenway Sports Group, occupied for most of Klopp's years in charge.
It is Gordon ended up signing important decisions of that era. Edwards now has the final say when it comes to appointing managers or acquiring partner clubs for a multi-club system. Needless to say, both he and Hughes have a lot riding on the success of Slote, who they believe is the right man in a difficult time.
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