Richard Hughes has outlined one particular factor which ‘attracted’ Liverpool towards appointing Arne Slot as their new head coach.
The 45-year-old has been given the considerable task of trying to build upon the legacy that Jurgen Klopp created at Anfield, although he arrives on Merseyside with an excellent reputation from his work at Feyenoord.
The Dutchman gave his first press conference in his new role on Friday morning, with the club’s recently installed sporting director also fielding questions from the media.
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When asked about the decision to hire Slot, Hughes outlined (via Liverpool Echo): “The playing style attracted us. On all the metrics, Arne’s Feyenoord team came out really well – attributes we would welcome here at Liverpool.
“It depends on the players you have. This style of playing that Arne has been successful with is the most attractive to watch, in my opinion. There is a duty here to play that kind of football.”
Slot was renowned at Feyenoord for his ‘high-energy, hard-pressing and possession-centric attacking tactics’ (Alex Keble, premierleague.com), with the first two terms in particular often associated with Klopp at Liverpool.
His former club tended to strike an ideal balance between defence and attack, with the Rotterdam outfit progressively scoring more and conceding less throughout his three seasons at the club. Their Eredivisie record was 76-34 in his first season in charge, 81-30 in 2022/23 and then 92-26 last term (Transfermarkt).
While the Premier League will obviously be a notable step up in quality, those figures suggest that the 45-year-old’s teams can thrill their supporters with plenty of goals without being overly cavalier and having their wonderful attacking output negated by a lax defence.
Liverpool were joyously free-scoring in Klopp’s first three years at Anfield in particular, although it took that length of time for him to instil the defensive fortitude which’d ultimately backbone our biggest successes under him.
If Slot can get the balance right for the Reds, just like he did at Feyenoord, then we could be in for some glorious football under the Dutchman and – most importantly – winning football.
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