Good morning! It’s Monday, there’s a full week left.
Don’t let him Ben White in your office distract you. Future :
👋 What will Arne Slot bring to Liverpool?
😡 Klopp and Salah row — but the striker should stay
🪄 Dark Arts fits Arsenal like a glove
📈 Messi’s 50 contributions challenge
Goodbye “Gegenpress”, hello “Topsport”
The appointment of Jurgen Klopp in 2015 made Gegenpressing the buzzword at Liverpool. For nine years, the club has been nourished by its brand of counter-press; heavy metal football, as it was called for a while.
Very soon, gegenpressing will give way to Totalsport, the philosophy that won Feyenoord the Dutch title last season. Change is coming to Anfield in the form of Arne Slot, the manager Liverpool chose to replace Klopp.
Terms for him were agreed with Feyenoord on Friday evening. Here are the titles:
- Sources in Liverpool say the fee is around £9.4 million ($11.8 million). Feyenoord claims he is worth more than £11 million ($13.8 million). You tend to see a disparity in the numbers given by different parties in a negotiation, but one way or another, Slot isn’t cheap.
- He will bring in members of his coaching staff from Feyenoord, including assistant Sipke Hulshoff and performance manager Ruben Peeters. These seem like key additions in terms of continuity.
- We are yet to know the precise details of Slot’s contract but Liverpool will be committed to him for the long term. As soon as he openly declared that he wanted to leave Feyenoord last week, it was a fait accompli.
Is this a risk for Liverpool?
Although Slot is well-respected in European circles, the Liverpool job will give him global exposure overnight. For the rest of the world, there is a lot to learn about him.
In truth, it’s a big step forward for the 45-year-old Dutchman, not because he lacks the required qualifications, but because Feyenoord was his first top-level coaching job.
He has been on an upward trend since taking a small Dutch side, AZ Alkmaar, to second place in the Eredivisie in 2019-20. This kind of overperformance always makes rival clubs angry.
At Feyenoord, he was part of what became known as “Totalsport” – a linear project where every cog in the machine, from top to bottom, was important but not essential. This is what the post-Klopp era will look like for Liverpool.
Tactically, he is unashamedly influenced by Pep Guardiola. His style has similarities to that of Roberto De Zerbi at Brighton. The Athletic’s Adam Crafton had the chance to spend some time with Slot a year ago. He wrote at length today about Slot’s charisma and ideas.
The conclusion I came to was that Slot would not try to run a dictatorship at Anfield. It amused me that some at Feyenoord never heard him raise his voice on the training ground.
Part of you is still wondering if Bayer Leverkusen’s Xavi Alonso was the man Liverpool really needed. But their eagerness to agree deals with Feyenoord is a big vote of confidence in Slot.
Salah fuels the fire… but he is likely to stay
As Adam’s article points out, no transfer fee under Slot at Feyenoord has exceeded £9 million ($11.2 million). The highest salary in Feyenoord is less than £40,000 ($50,000) per week. Needless to say, he will be dealing with much bigger numbers and much bigger egos at Anfield.
This was demonstrated by the extraordinary row between Klopp and Mo Salah during Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with West Ham United on Saturday, a result which confirmed their Premier League title bid is over.
Neither would say what the disagreement was about, and Klopp then tried to brush it off. Salah then added fuel to the fire by telling journalists that there would be “fire if I speak”.
They have been good to each other, Klopp and Salah, and we have just reported that Liverpool expect the Egyptian to stay next season. Yet this is what the end of days usually looks like for a manager. At least the documentary should be good…
White’s Dark Arts
How long until Premier League teams start employing Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers?
Tottenham Hotspur could have pulled one off yesterday as Ben White worked his magic. The Arsenal right-back is an unassuming guy, but he broke new ground in the dark arts by trying to undo goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario’s glove as Spurs prepared to defend a corner.
Ben White was spotted trying to loosen Vicario’s gloves in a corner 👀 pic.twitter.com/UQN1mYR7MH
– Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 28, 2024
Spurs were unable to defend it and conceded from another corner before half-time, leaving them 3-0 adrift at the break. What should have been Arsenal’s toughest game of the game was a breeze in the first 45 minutes. Manchester City are pushed until the last kick.
As for Tottenham, they are in the middle of a small cultural war that was bound to break out at some point: between those who like Ange Postecoglou’s abandonment and those who want more pragmatism from him.
Arsenal have improved so much that it’s easy to forget the skepticism that surrounded Arteta for a while. Arsenal’s response was to double down. If Spurs have complete confidence in Ange-Ball, this is where they will need to do the same with Postecoglou.
Where are we ?
Bayer Leverkusen and Inter Milan won their domestic titles quickly, but across much of Europe it took time for other leagues to get going. The weekend was, however, marked by a lot of movement:
Around Athletic FC
🇺🇸 Lionel Messi is breaking even more MLS records, so Jeff Rueter got to thinking: Can Messi surpass Carlos Vela’s all-time tally of 49 goals in a single season in the United States?
🇮🇹 A bad week for AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli. Inter won the Serie A title in the derby, now they are on the verge of dismissal. He doesn’t read newspapers, so his friends kindly sent him screenshots of stories about Milan’s former Wolves coach Julen Lopetegui’s time in court.
No Women’s Champions League for future USWNT coach Emma Hayes. Among the men, at Stamford Bridge, Thiago Silva, winner of the Champions League, is leaving.
Answer to the quiz❓
Well done if you answered Friday’s quiz question: who are the five players who played in the Premier League during the 2007-08 and 2023-24 seasons? The answers: James Tomkins, Ashley Young, James Milner, Lucasz Fabianski and Jonny Evans. I forgot about Evans and got stuck on four. Facial palm.
(Top photo: Marcel ter Bals/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)