In the latest Blood Red column, Ian Doyle looks at how Arne Slot is now dealing with a new experience at Liverpool
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot(Image: Marcel ter Bals/DeFodi Images/DeFodi via Getty Images)
Arne Slot probably thought he’d seen enough of PSV Eindhoven from his time sparring with the Dutch champions in his native Holland. But the latest reunion with his old foes brought into sharp focus matters that have surely now reached a pivotal juncture in his Liverpool tenure.
Almost exactly six months from the high of the Reds boss thrusting the Premier League trophy skyward at an emotionally vibrant Anfield, Wednesday’s dismal 4-1 Champions League reverse to PSV at the same stadium represented a new desperate low.
Slot, as is his demeanour, appeared reasonably calm when facing the media immediately after the game, and when further addressing the press pack the following day in preparation for Sunday’s Premier League visit to West Ham United.
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But the Dutchman will have been hurting inside, his pride taking another dent with a second-half performance that ranked among the worst Anfield has seen from Liverpool in recent memory.
Whether it has also damaged belief in his tactical approach and attacking ethos, though, is what will be of greater importance to the Reds as they look to halt a shocking run of nine defeats in 12 games in all competitions, their worst such run since the 1953/54 campaign.
Liverpool were relegated last year. And while there’s little suggestion the drop is a realistic fear this season – despite being down in 12th, they are only three points off the top four compared to seven away from the drop zone – the reversal in fortunes has been as unexpected as it is alarming.
Yet it is remarkable to consider that, even allowing for the current malaise, Slot has the highest win percentage – 63.16% – of any Liverpool boss in the last 129 years.
True, having taken charge of only 76 games, the sample size is considerably smaller than any permanent manager in that time other than the hapless Roy Hodgson, who won only 13 of his 31 games at the helm.
But a glance at the metric at Slot’s other clubs paints a similar picture. 61.76% at Cambur, where he spent a season. 55.17% during his 18 months at AZ Alkmaar. And 65.33% in three years with Feyenoord.
This is a manager who, by knowing how to guide a team to success, has rarely experienced anything else.
Slot, then, is negotiating a very new road that he was inevitably going to encounter sooner rather than later. The only certainty for every manager is that, at some point, things will go wrong. In many cases, badly wrong, as has been the case for most Liverpool bosses.
Indeed, having been in charge for almost nine years, there were multiple occasions when the Reds lost their way under Slot’s predecessor Jurgen Klopp.
In Klopp’s first full season in charge, Liverpool had a spell of just two wins in 12. During the pandemic season of 2020/21, as defending champions the Reds at one stage lost six of seven league games – five of them at home in a run of six successive Anfield losses. And in 2022/23 they had a period where they won only five in 18, a sequence that included eight losses.
The difference is Klopp was already steeled for such troubling times having been relegated with Mainz and seen a major dip in his last season at Borussia Dortmund. Slot has had no such real experience of prolonged struggle in the dugout.
The former Feyenoord manager, having won the Premier League title in his first season, has set the bar high in terms of expectation. It would have been some effort for Liverpool to replicate last term, not least given the rate of change among the squad.
But, as the Reds boss readily admits, that is no excuse for the results of the past two months. Slot is right now dealing with something most Liverpool managers go through – and the quicker he learns from it, the better the immediate prospects for both the head coach and his team.
