Arne Slot Uses Jurgen Klopp Failure In Defence of Liverpool Future
Arne Slot insisted that his position as Liverpool manager would not be dictated by the club’s Champions League qualification—as that wasn’t the case for Jürgen Klopp.
The reigning Premier League champions are barrelling towards a disastrous defence of their title. The Reds have fallen well behind the leading pack of Arsenal, Manchester City and Aston Villa, while Chelsea and a newly resurgent Manchester United have shunted Slot’s side down into sixth.
It was put to Slot whether his status in charge of Liverpool could come under scrutiny should he finish the season outside of the top five, which will likely be enough for Champions League qualification.
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“That is again a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t decide on my future,” Slot sniffed. “The only thing I do know is that it happened before, and recently, and it didn’t affect the future of that manager. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, of course.”
Liverpool finished fifth, outside the Champions League places, in the 2022–23 campaign under Klopp. The Reds were also knocked out of both domestic cup competitions in the fourth round before crashing out in the Champions League last 16. The German boss was backed in that summer window, completely rebuilding his midfield with the triple swoop for Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch for a combined £129 million (around $160 million at the time).
“In general, [with] managers, especially at this club—maybe somewhere else it is mainly, but not only, about results—they also look at the progress the players make, the progress the team makes, the circumstances are sometimes taken into account,” Slot argued.
“That is not at all clubs, but I think I am working at a club that does look at those things. As it has shown in the past when the club did not qualify for the Champions League.”
Is Slot Right to Compare Himself to Klopp?
On the face of it, there are a myriad of similarities between Liverpool’s current campaign and the nadir of 2022–23. Just as this year, Klopp’s side were riddled with injuries. The proliferation of setbacks got to such a point that the German boss moaned: “It was like a witch was in the building.”
If anything, three years ago was even worse than this term—that particular vintage didn’t spend a single gameweek inside the Premier League’s top four.
However, the exceedingly obvious factor that Slot is missing is the identity of the individuals involved. While he may boast as many Premier League titles as Klopp, Slot doesn’t come close to the reverence in which he is held by the fans, the club and the city at large. The year before Klopp took Liverpool to fifth, he was awarded the freedom of Liverpool and hailed by Margaret Aspinall, a prominent campaigner for Hillsborough, as “a great human being, a great personality and a great humanitarian.”
Slot is still some way short of that legacy. Whether he will get the chance to build upon what he’s already fostered remains to be seen.
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