How manager Arne Slot, Jurgen Klopp’s successor at Liverpool, was selected by Harvard-educated physicist’s data-oriented approach

The Reds are buzzing. But the man on the touchline is unfamiliar, almost invisible. He is one of the many faces in the bustling dugout. He could be anyone, the man on the left with a blazer, or the man in the middle with a turtleneck, or that man in a black suede jacket over jumpers. That man who rarely fumes on the technical area, or whispers sweet nothings into the ears of the fourth official. That man who never preens or sniggers. A man who doesn’t exist at all.

Liverpool would not have chosen a more contrasting manager than Arne Slot as Jurgen Klopp’s heir. Klopp on the touchline was a spectacle of emotions in itself, all bristling energy and unshackled emotions. Slot is self-effacing and introverted, as though Liverpool’s management wanted an antithesis of Klopp.

Slot’s was not a leap-of-faith acquisition. Contrary to public myths that former Reds stalwart and Bayer Leverkusen miracle manager Xabi Alonso was Klopp’s heir apparent, and his refusal prompted alternatives, Slot was Liverpool’s primary target. Soon after the German manager told the higher-ups of the club that he was not renewing his tenure, the club’s research head Will Spearman, a Harvard-educated physicist, and his team of analysts undertook a data-oriented approach to spot Klopp’s successor.

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Identity was the primary criterion—they wanted someone in the Klopp mode, a practitioner of a high-pressing and possession-centric brand of football. Other gauges included how a potential candidate groomed players, forged team spirit, his working relation with the staff and then board-room, and his equations with players over a minimum three-season time-frame. Slot came out as the runaway topper and it was now merely a matter of striking a deal with the manager and his club Feyenoord. The business was completed discreetly, behind the smokescreen of Alonso reuniting with his former club rumours. He was unfamiliar to most outside the Eredivisie, despite his transformation of Feyenoord from also-rans to champions, apart from those that had watched him first-hand, who swore by his tactical intelligence and placid demeanour.

Slot is self-effacing and introverted, as though Liverpool’s management wanted an antithesis of Klopp. (Reuters) Slot is self-effacing and introverted, as though Liverpool’s management wanted an antithesis of Klopp. (Reuters)

The 45-year-old is perhaps the most mild-mannered manager in the league. The village he grew up in Bergentheim, located in the Bible belt of the Netherlands, he was a shy midfielder in his playing career for NAC, which spent most of the time in the Dutch second division. He never swore, never engaged in simulation, seldom committed a tactical foul.

One of his managers, as the story goes, benched him and told him he would play only if he became more aggressive. His father, a school teacher, formed his ideals, as a person and coach. He fell in love with the game, and later coaching, listening to his father instructing the amateur club he coached. “Once when he was on holiday, he asked, ‘can you replace me as a manager at my amateur club’? Already at 21, 22, I was doing these kinds of things, and all my team-mates from my club would probably say they were not surprised I became a manager. So probably from quite a young age,” Slot told TNT Sports.

Ironically, when he quit professional football, he didn’t head to coaching straightaway. Instead, he started a firm selling captain’s armbands with his brother Jakko. But the pull of coaching was irresistible and he started coaching a local club’s youth team. In a decade, he is managing one of Europe’s most storied and successful clubs. Some managers tremble, seized by stage fright. Slot has enthusiastically hugged the challenge of replacing a cult-figure manager, whose legacy stares him from every corner of the stadium.

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He inherited a reasonably settled side, didn’t spend a dime on transfers, but Slot has looked neither overawed nor out of place. Several managers in his situation would either look to replicate the successful methods of the predecessor or, the more egoistical ones, would tear the principles completely apart. Slot practises moderatism. He has already brought more control that Klopp’s side exuded. The press is not as effervescent as Klopp’s but as efficient. Slot’s forwards don’t hound the defenders relentlessly. It’s comparatively measured, more in rhyme with Pep Guardiola than Klopp. To gain midfield control, he usually deploys two highly technical double pivots. That explains the resurrection of Ryan Gravenberch, who was a peripheral figure in Klopp’s schemes.

But under Slot, he has flourished into one of Liverpool’s most influential players of the season, offering stability in the middle. If foraying through the flanks was Klopp’s preferred route to attack, Slot’s Liverpool progressed the ball through more central channels. There is a fixation to play from the back, employing short passes like Brighton under Roberto De Zerbi. The players have imperceptibly blended into his methods.

Speculation swirled that he would unleash a drastic shuffle of personnel, as most new managers are prone to. Rather, he has vested his faith on the old guard. And rejuvenated them. Mohammed Salah, trampling speculations of a Saudi Arabia move, has rediscovered his speed and snap. Diogo Jota has excelled in link-up upfront and has emerged as one of Slot’s key men. Luis Diaz has discovered accuracy with his scoring boots. The attacking full-backs have relished the extra layer of security the double pivot offers. Virgl van Dijk, discernibly slower, and Ibrahim Konate, prone to clumsiness, have been less error-prone this season.

Seven gameweeks on, Liverpool helm the league table, winning six of the seven games. It’s still incipient to suggest they are title contenders. But Liverpool have made a seamless transition from the Klopp to Slot era. The touchline tantrums of Klopp would be missed, but not the dynamism of his teams.

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