The news that the current coach of the Czech national team Ondřej Lingr and Slovakian defender Dávid Hanck at Feyenoord could lead Liverpool from next season filled the front pages of the island’s sports newspapers on Wednesday, right next to Arsenal’s crushing victory over Chelsea (5:0) in the evening.
The 45-year-old Arne Slot became the number one candidate after Liverpool looked in vain for Xabi Alonso from Leverkusen or Rúben Amorim from Sporting, with whom advanced negotiations did not even take place in the end.
And so all attention shifted to Rotterdam.
“Liverpool feel he fits their criteria in terms of style of play, team face and ability to work with a certain system,” ESPN’s Mark Ogden adds.
The mutual negotiations, which Liverpool has already started, according to the BBC, may be accelerated by the fact that Germany’s Bayern and Spain’s Barcelona are also cautiously circling around the unsightly bald head coach.
“But I honestly have no idea why Liverpool are so worried about it, when they initially roped in names like Alonso or Amorim,” adds Ogden.
Arne Slot with the Dutch Cup winner’s trophy.
Feyenoord flourished under Sloto’s three-year leadership, winning the Dutch league last season and winning the cup this year. Moreover, it is not the first time that a successful coach has been roped in by English clubs. Leeds was the first to make an offer, and Tottenham also tried unsuccessfully for the second time.
But Slot certainly does not hide the fact that he would like to train on the islands. “My next stop will definitely not be in the Netherlands. If that was the case, I would have failed. The next step should be abroad and I repeatedly say that the best league is the Premier League,” he said before extending his contract until 2026 in the summer.
But his wish may come true even sooner.
“Also, with all due respect, Liverpool are a much bigger club than Tottenham,” says Ogden. “It would be a huge leap for him, made even more so by the fact that he would be replacing Klopp. It’s hard to say if he’s up to it,” reflects a British journalist who notes, for example, the not entirely successful transfer of Erik Ten Hag from the Dutch Ajax to Manchester United.
Slot has been training at the highest level for less than five years and has only worked in the Netherlands so far. He started as an assistant, then temporarily managed Cambuur once before getting a chance at Alkmaar. He finished second in his first season, tied for first with Ajax, when the competition was prematurely ended by the coronavirus pandemic.
He subsequently knocked out Pilsen in the second preliminary round of the Champions League, before being fired from the club in December 2020, as it was discovered that he had been negotiating with Feyenoord in the meantime.
He took over the management of the Rotterdam unit only in the summer of the following year. Since then, he has coached 144 matches, of which he won 93, drew 27 and lost 24.
In the very first season, he reached the finals of the Conference League, on the way he met Slavia Prague twice – first in the group stage, then he passed them in the quarter-finals (3:3 and 3:1).
Out of 98 league matches, he controlled 69 of them, which makes an impressive share of 70.4%.
Feyenoord team meeting in the cup final against Nijmegen.
But everything can still be held back by the price. According to The Athletic website, Feyenoord rejected an initial offer of nine million euros. Liverpool are trying to keep the price as low as possible, “in the meantime they will continue to assess other candidates”.
Feyenoord also announced shortly after midday that they were canceling Sloto’s press conference ahead of Thursday’s league game with the Go Ahead Eagles. The British speculate that Liverpool’s interest is behind it.
But the whole story is still fresh and is developing relatively quickly. The search for a replacement may not work even on the third try.
