Many fans are excited about Arne Slot appointment as the new manager of Liverpool. They say Slot plays attacking football, he improves players and he’s won trophies. Although, as history has shown, nothing in football is guaranteed.
We’ve seen managerial appointments with high expectations go down in flames. Not for just a single reason, like the manager isn’t good enough. It’s for many reasons, such as club and manager suitability, players don’t perform, media pressure, etc.
Many things can go wrong and we can’t predict the outcome of the future. We can only guess what could happen. So while many people are predicting how Slot will be so successful at Liverpool, I want to counter that and give five of the biggest reasons why Arne Slot could fail at Liverpool. By failure, I mean get sacked in his second season at Liverpool. Let’s get started.
5) Arne Slot Not First Choice
One reason is the fact that he wasn’t the first managerial choice candidate to replace Jurgen Klopp. Everybody knows Xabi Alonso, the former Liverpool legend, doing miracles with Leverkusen, was a unanimous choice to be the next Liverpool manager.
Liverpool bosses did everything they could to hire him, but he was intent on staying with Leverkusen another season and he rejected all advances.
Then you had rumours from managers like sporting manager Ruben Amorim. Until we finally land that surprise decision on Arne Slott. Now, this could hurt Slot’s authority because as soon as Liverpool start losing a few matches under Slot, the media, fans will start discussing and they’ll be thinking that they have to try bringing the next manager on Alonso or Amorim to fix the mess as they were the first choices in the first place.
4) Dutch Manager Fail In The Premier League
Another big reason is that the history of Dutch managers showed that they have failed in the Premier League. The likes of Frank de Boer, Ronald Koeman, Louis van Gaal, Gus Hiddink, Ruud Gullit and Erik Ten Hag have all failed to succeed in the Premier League.
Let’s look at Ten Hag as an example. When he was initially hired as a Man Utd manager, the same narrative for Slot we’re having was seen for Ten Hag. Hearing stuff about how he plays attractive, high-pressing football, the Dutch philosophy, the success they had with their Dutch clubs and then you look what’s happened with Ten Hag, things have not worked out. This could be the same situation for Arne Slott.
Yes, Liverpool players are built, they play the German style of direct passing football and Slot’s philosophy might not transition well enough or quick enough for Liverpool to enjoy success under him. Slot could join the long list of Dutch managers who fell in the Premier League.
3) Big Club Pressure
Managing Liverpool FC and in the Premier League is not an easy task. Arne Slott has never managed a big club before and managing Liverpool comes with added pressure because their own fans will tell you that you have to be ingrained with Manchester City and its people to manage the club successfully.
Arne Slot might find that too much to handle for his first big job. He has also never managed in the Premier League, nor has he ever managed in the Champions League. So while Slot’s had some success in the Europa Conference League, the Champions League is a different beast and so is the Premier League compared to the Dutch League. It’s a massive, massive jump.
History has shown, as mentioned before, the managers that come from the Dutch League find it difficult to adapt to the Premier League. So let’s see how Arne Slot performs beyond this season at Liverpool.
2) Slot Has Never Managed Big Players
This is another fact on why Arne Slot might fail at Liverpool. He has never managed big players before. When a manager joins a new club, how he manages the superstars in that club is one of the biggest reasons why they’ll either be successful or failures and this is why Slot having no experience managing superstar players is a big risk in him coming to the Liverpool job.
There are usually two types of managers you need to manage superstar players when you come to a new club. They either have to be managers that have won lots of trophies with smaller teams and developed their own superstars, such as Mourinho, did with Porto or Klopp did it with Dortmund. That made their transition coming to a big club more easier.
There are other types of managers who can succeed in a new job more easily. These are the ex players / legends of the club like Guardiola at Barcelona, Arteta at Arsenal, Zidane at Real Madrid, even Xabi Alonso, because he’s such a legendary player, he can go into teams with authority already. The risk is Arne Slot is neither of those. He was a former player, but not a well-known player. So he’s not going to get the ex legendary player privilege.
Then you have the other types of managers who’ve done well with smaller clubs like Mourinho and Klopp. Although, Slot did have some success with Feyenoord but it wasn’t on the level where he took a smaller team and took them to massive heights like the way Mourinho or Klopp did with Dortmund or Porto.
So it’s going to take a lot for Slot’s leadership for the superstar players to buy into his style. The players like Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah, Alisson, who are in the prime of their careers. They’re not going to want a manager to lose. They’re not going to want a manager to lose.
It’s a question of how will they take on Slot’s leadership and how much will Slot know how to manage these superstar experienced players. If Arne Slot doesn’t get this right, his leadership style with superstar players, not just young players, superstar players, things could unravel very quickly for Slott at Liverpool.
1) Matching Klopp’s Heritage
The number one biggest reason of why Slot might fail at Liverpool is the fact that he’s following on from a legendary manager in Jurgen Klopp.
Now he has to manage fans’ expectations, Players’ expectations and media’s expectations of how successful he can be because he will always be compared to the manager previous to him, which was a legendary manager.
History has shown succeeding legendary managers is too difficult on the first try. You need at least one transitional manager to bridge the gap and finding the true successor. The current Liverpool players, coaches, staff members, youth coaches, anyone, they’re all used to working in a certain way and that the transition to a new manager, especially someone that they don’t know, might be too difficult.
If you look at the two most recent examples of a long-term manager leaving, it’s Alex Ferguson at United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, both their successors, direct successors in David Moyes and Unai Emery, failed miserably.
Unai Emery is showing that he’s a great manager, but he failed at Arsenal because the transition following on from a legendary manager was just too hard and this could be the same thing for Arne Slot. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad manager, it’s just following from a legendary manager is very hard. There will be Klopp’s imprints all the time. Slot has to be able to manage that. If he does, then this man is a genius. Anyways, he has a massively tough job on his hands.
So that was my honest list of the reasons of why Arne Slot could fail at Liverpool. Please take note, I’m not saying Slot will fail at Liverpool because he has shown some impressive start to the new season. I’m simply presenting the factors that could see him fail.
Thank you reading to the end. See you again on the next one.