Liverpool manager Arne Slot has explained the similarities and differences between his system and that of former coach Jurgen Klopp. Slot says that while Liverpool will maintain its familiar shape, the team may occasionally be more conservative while on the ball.
Klopp, who stepped down from his role as Liverpool boss at the end of the 2023-24 season, enjoyed a trophy-laden nine-year spell at Anfield Stadium between 2015 and 2024. He guided the Reds to the UEFA Champions League in 2018-19, the Premier League title in 2019-20, an FA Cup-League Cup double in 2021-22, and another League Cup at the end of the 2023-24 season. Klopp holds a special place in every Liverpool fan’s heart, and Slot will have to do a stupendous job to measure up to him.
There were glaring similarities between Slot’s Feyenoord and Klopp’s Liverpool, which was one of the reasons why the hierarchy appointed the Dutchman over more accomplished tacticians. Ahead of kicking off the 2024-25 season, the new Liverpool chief has explained how his Reds will look to play in the coming months and possibly years.
Similar But Different: Arne Slot Explains How Liverpool Will Play Under Him
Speaking to Canal+, Slot started with the similarities.
He said (via Liverpool ECHO):
“There are a lot of similarities with Jurgen Klopp, with the way they played in the past, and I’m hoping we will see these similarities in the upcoming weeks and months.
“We like to have the ball, we don’t like the other team to have the ball… but the Premier League is a league where many good clubs are and many clubs want to have the ball, so we have to fight really hard for us to have the ball. And if we have it, we want to score, we want to be intense in everything we do. If we have the ball, we want to score – that’s quite simple of course! We want to be intense in everything we do.”
Explaining the only key difference, Slot added:
“Maybe the only slight difference there is, is that after we win the ball, I like to go forward just as Jurgen liked it, but I sometimes like it when players try to keep the ball and not play the difficult ball, where Jurgen or the former regime maybe liked the chaotic scenes in and around the 16 a lot as well. They were really, really, really successful with that for so many years.
“But it sometimes also depends a bit on the players you have. I think we’re trying to find the balance between trying to create chaos at certain moments and trying to keep possession of the ball a bit longer in other moments.”
Liverpool will face newly promoted Ipswich Town in its Premier League season on Saturday, August 17.
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