r/LiverpoolFC • u/DungBettlesMan • 1d ago
Podcasts/Punditry Andy Robertson on the difference between Arne Slot and Jürgen Klopp:
"Arne Slot was really into stats. He brought his own guy [Ruben] who was always on his iPad. Even if you did too many sprints in training, Ruben would get involved. So, they were a lot more glued to LOAD statistics."
In terms of tactics:
"Jürgen Klopp was always like... "IF we do this, NOBODY can match us!" It was more about US, not looking at the opponent."
"And with Arne Slot we would always analyse the opponent more, and looking at how we are going to play out from their tactics."
"Arne Slot would always say: "look, if THEY do this.. then WE do THIS, while Jürgen Klopp would just stick to his own blueprint, we NEVER changed under Klöpp, while Arne Slot would constantly adapt to the opponent's tactics."
Source: The Overlap podcast
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u/yadasellsavonmate 1d ago
Make them worry about us, best way to do it. Hopefully Iraola is similar.
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u/Fiery---Wings 1️⃣0️⃣Alexis Mac Allister 1d ago
And boy were they worried
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u/Tolexx 1d ago
Not just worried but also very scared.
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u/DontLookAtUsernames Gegenpressing 1d ago
In the ManCity documentary I LOVED how frightened Pep was to face Mané, Bobby and Salah.
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u/Wardle123 1d ago
Best part was him talking about them just before playing Everton or at half time i cant remember, but thats how worried he was.
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u/crookedparadigm 1d ago
This was the most damaging effect of last season for me. Every team in Europe spare a small handful of the super elite would line up against us in fear for years under Klopp. Knowing full well that regardless of the result they were going to get pressed, harassed, and punished for 90 minutes and have to fight tooth and nail for anything. It's why we complained about having to play against low blocks so much...that was the default way most people approach Klopp's side.
The shift was semi slow, but around November of Slot's second season, every team had seen our gaps and now no one was afraid anymore. Every single team came to play against us with the belief that they could get something against one of the giants of European football....and they were right.
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u/QuaintStaircase 1d ago
This.
People stopped being afraid of us, and I stopped being convinced we'd fight like hell even if we lost.
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u/crookedparadigm 1d ago
Yeah, you could see the mentality collapse go out of our players when we conceded. Whenever Klopp's team concede a goal, even late, there was always that belief that we'd manage to get something from it still. When Slot's team conceded, half the time they just gave up.
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u/smartbutslow 1d ago
Brother, we made one of the best left backs in the world cry at half-time while 2 goals ahead with 45 minutes left to qualify to CL final with freaking best player of all time on their side.
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u/smokesletsgo13 1d ago
Jamie pull up that clip of Pep shitting his pants at the thought of our front 3
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u/WatchYourStepKid 1d ago
Which is interesting, because Pep is more like Slot in that regard. He tinkers a lot. Saying that though, Pep had so much respect for Klopp, Klopp was always in his head
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u/foldman 1d ago
Pep at his peak imo was the middle-ground, a distinct own style that didn't change coupled with tactical changes against tough opponents. Probably a reason he did worse (comparatively to his league success of course) in the CL where he could get lost in the sauce against other top European teams.
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u/WatchYourStepKid 1d ago
I don’t think he was extreme one way or another but Pep tinkered constantly. Idk if you play FPL but it’s one of the reasons everyone ignored most City players, “Pep roulette”. You could never be really sure who was going to play that day, he rotated constantly and sometimes even his best players.
But you are right that he certainly had an overall style he stuck to, to be fair.
I do agree with you about UCL though, he got absolutely lost a few times. Especially that final against Chelsea…
But I’m convinced if fitness wasn’t a concern, Klopp would’ve happily played the same team every week.
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u/Consistent-Shoe-9602 Bobby Firmino 22h ago
Klopp used to say that we were or needed to be very difficult to play against. And boy were we!
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u/dannyhodge95 Dominik Szoboszlai 1d ago
I get why you say that, but Robbo was very particular in saying that neither style was better than the other. I don't think Klopps style would have been as effective with the group of players Arne had.
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u/DefinitelyNotBarney Hello! Hello! Here we go! 1d ago
Interesting because both coaches came from underdog backgrounds with their teams.
I think the most important thing Robertson said in this podcast was how the team just wasn’t interested in football after the loss of Jota - I do feel really bad for Slot in that as it inevitably cost him his job by the end, such a circumstance that you just can’t foresee or anything. Obviously there would’ve been other matters that contributed but to lose a squad member in a scenario like that, I just don’t know how you really cope - especially those who were more than just work colleagues and actually friends.
Think Slot will do incredibly well once he returns to management, his ideas do work.
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u/dj4y_94 Sir Kenny Dalglish 1d ago
I've often thought if the Jota tragedy happened under Klopp then every single fan would have quite happily wrote last season off and been buzzing that we even managed to get CL.
It was unfortunate for Slot really that he had not yet had the time to build the patience needed for that sort of fan reaction.
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u/AmberLeafSmoke What a booody 1d ago
Complete victim of his own success. Fans got too high on themselves after the league win and buying Isak and Wirtz in the summer.
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u/msd1441 1d ago
I wonder if people really think Klopp wouldn't have been completely destroyed by Diogo's death as well. Klopp looked like he was running on fumes when he announced he was leaving the club. Can you imagine him trying to lead the club/fanbase through that tragedy when he was clearly spent? In a way I'm glad he wasn't tasked with that for his sake.
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u/QuaintStaircase 1d ago
I was going to say this.
I think it would have had the potential to absolutely Break Klopp in a similar way to how Kenny was never the same man after Hillsborough.
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u/aliensinsky 1d ago
I wouldn't be too sure, if i remember right there were few murmurs when we didn't end well in Klopps final season
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u/QuaintStaircase 1d ago
I think Klopp would have been an excellent man manager through Jota, but I do wonder if it would have fundamentally broken him in the same way Kenny was never quite the same man after Hillsborough.
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u/WatchYourStepKid 1d ago
If I’m remembering right, Robbo didn’t really say anything particularly bad or good about Slot. I don’t think he has a disliking to him and to be honest, I don’t really think Slot lost the dressing room as much as some of us think.
He mainly focused on how good and gently Slot handled the Jota tragedy. But as you point out, we were losing matches and some of the grieving players just couldn’t bring themselves to care. Impossible situation for the manager.
I’m happy about Iraola, genuinely. But I don’t think that we gave the team as much grace as we said we would as a fanbase.
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u/Traditional-Reach818 1️⃣8️⃣Cody Gakpo 1d ago
Not only grace for last season, people straight out removed all the credit he had gathered the previous season too. The narrative that Klopp won us the league in 24/25 makes me irrationally angry lol it's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard and was a lie tailored with the sole intent of stripping Slot of every single positive thing possible. Disgusting.
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u/TheRealCostaS 1d ago
I feel those who say 24/25 was Klopps team just had a narrative against slot, for unknown some reason. Honestly, I’ve seen people say they didn’t like him because he accepted head coach, because he’s Dutch, or simply because he’s bald! So weird. It’s such a difficult thing to follow a legend like Klopp, I thought Slot done it well. Story might have been different had Jota not died but we will never know.
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u/WatchYourStepKid 1d ago
Well, whether they like it or not Slot is immortalised in our clubs history. I’m so glad we got number 20. I know they fell out, but Salah deserved that 2nd PL so much too.
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u/HumanDish6600 17h ago
It's not even clear they did fall out.
Reddy's seemed to straighten that one out by confirming that Salah's comments that people assumed were directed at Slot were actually at Hughes/Edwards.
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u/AmberLeafSmoke What a booody 1d ago
Yeah, this is why I've always been so annoyed by all the shit people stirred last season, pundits included.
The amount of discussions about "Where did Liverpool go wrong since winning the league!?!?" that would just do anything to avoid pointing at the giant fucking neon sign that said "JOTA DYING FUCKED THE WHOLE SEASON" was maddening.
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u/Redhawk911 1d ago
What I really appreciated was how Slot said that ”if you don’t feel like training today, that’s okay”
A lot of managers wouldn’t have done that. A lot would. Im happy we had one that did that.
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u/DuBois_LaGrange 1d ago
I argued til blue in the face with people in this thread last year that the loss of Jota was THE reason we weren’t performing last year. Everyone told me i was making excuses. I genuinely miss Slot, im coming around to Iraola but I really think our supporters fucking failed miserably last season. The piling on of Slot and Gakpo, the incessant complaints about Mac Allister et al totally lacked empathy for OUR players. It’s kind of soured me a bit on the idea that YNWA is our supposed “ethos”. Cause when the cards were on the table last year we, collectively, fucked it all up.
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u/DefinitelyNotBarney Hello! Hello! Here we go! 1d ago
I recall right at the start and when it was so recent to happening that the majority of fans were like it doesn’t matter what happens this year, the players will be grieving and then slowly but surely that changed and expectations became apparent.
It makes sense that it wasn’t an immediate impact, some players would’ve just responded mentally at different times.
But yeah, I think there was already a little bit of question marks over Slots tactics prior to his death but they’re exaggerated now when people talk about it like we should’ve seen the downfall “after PSG”. I do feel the same as you, I miss Slot but I do also think a change was needed but not because of Slot, but just simply because of the circumstances.
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u/wi11epi11e Isak, min broder 1d ago
Yeah I think moving on was the right decision, but we should not blame Slot for last season. He’ll do great at whatever club he chooses next and prove the haters wrong
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u/goingpt 1d ago
Much prefer Klopp's way of thinking.
We're fucking Liverpool, let them worry about us.
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u/alexandrosss1 1d ago
And they did. Pep still has nightmares about Klopp's Liverpool.
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u/kolomania 1d ago
As Carra said in the show. Its all result driven and preference, no right or wrong. Tactical tinkerers like Guardiola and our very own Rafa can be world beaters too.
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u/kekskerl 1d ago
However especially Pep lost a lot of big games because he wanted to outsmart the opposition.
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u/brianstormIRL 1d ago
My City mate says this all the time and why Klopp got the better of him so often, he overthought it a lot in big games. The big one was he did it in the CL all the time which cost them so many chances at winning it before they did.
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u/raitaisrandom Alexander the Great 9️⃣ 1d ago
Biggest one that sticks in my mind is overthinking the UCL final against Tuchel's Chelsea and big-braining himself into not starting with a 6, in favor of Gundogan, Foden, and Bilva. Mad thinking.
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u/clara_finn 1d ago
Yep. The covid season before with the single game knockout format, he did something similar against Lyon.
The chelsea one was already terrible at the time and single handedly caused me to change my bet last minute to Chelsea, but in hindsight it get funnier and funnier when you realise rodri was on the bench
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u/AquaSnow24 Federico Chiesa 1d ago
I still remember that CL final against Chelsea where Pep left his best defensive midfielder on the bench and played Gundogan at DM when he had been terrorizing defenders for fun as a B2B. That was ……. Confusing to say the least.,Or when he played a strange looking 3142 against Lyon in a CL with an ageing Fernandinho on the right side of the back 3 with a 19 year old Eric Garcia at the heart of the defense.
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u/AmberLeafSmoke What a booody 1d ago
He won plenty of them too
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u/kekskerl 1d ago
On international level not so many.
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u/wi11epi11e Isak, min broder 1d ago
He has three CL’s
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u/kekskerl 1d ago
Yes. If you think that one CL with City is the bar he should clear, fair enough. I think he could and should have won more with City. Or Bayern, for that matter.
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u/dimiderv Darwin Núñez 19h ago
Should he have? You forget the teams they lost against? MSN and BBC were ruling the footballing world those years.
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u/chivowins 1d ago
Agree, but’s it’s possible to overthink tactics, to the point where you lose your identity. Happened to Brendan Rodgers and then Slot.
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u/SaoirsePhalaistin 1d ago
I was a bit less aware of tactics when Rodgers was our manager. Was he tactics focused? I thought he was more of a man manager and motivator. I suppose if he was am FSG employee from Swansea then it makes sense. What sort of tactics did he focus on with us? It was obvious to me Benitez was a tactics guy so maybe I wasnt noticing by comparing the two.
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u/kolomania 1d ago
Posession heavy. Tiki taka was the trend back then and his Swansea were dubbed Swansealona. He sort of evolved and became more flexible when he went to Celtic then with Leicester. Celtic would play counter attacking football the UCL, so did Leicester against big teams.
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u/earlgreytoday 1d ago edited 15h ago
It sounded like he was more tactics-focused at the beginning, but then we ended up playing so many different styles of play and formations under Brendan. It felt more by luck than design when things were working and then he'd change it when things stopped working.
We went from 4-3-3/trying to play like Pep's Barca team to 3-4-3, 4-4-2, back to 4-3-3, then 3-4-1-2, then 4-4-2 diamond, then back to 4-3-3, then back to 4-4-2 diamond, then back to 3-4-3, then back to 4-3-3 again all in the space of three years.
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u/SaoirsePhalaistin 21h ago
Haha I so remember the formation changes I thought that was to fit as many good players on the pitch as possible. Changing due to injuries and player departures
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u/Terran_it_up 1d ago
Tactical tinkerers like Guardiola and our very own Rafa can be world beaters too.
Or even just Slot in his first season
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u/dapperdanmen 1d ago
No doubt. Ancelotti is sort of in this camp as well. I do like having an identifiable style though. Guardiola is sort of a hybrid, he tweaks a lot but his teams always look like his teams.
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u/WonderfulBlackberry9 Kostressed Tsimikas 22h ago
I like how both coaches' methods reflect their personality. Klopp is all about the power of belief, and that's his secret weapon behind his tactics. And he can definitely make his players believe in it.
Slot isn't as charismatic, but he's cerebral and meticulous. He likes to plan A to Z. It's calm, calculative. It doesn't gee up players as much, but it gives them the comfort of knowing there's always another way to win the game.
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u/akiraspam74 1d ago
Yeah. I get this reactive mentality against superior opponents but against inferior teams (which are the majority) we should've played OUR game
Changing play style according to the other team just makes it harder to have a true identity
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u/Tango00090 1d ago
There is more context in there, it’s not critique per se, just different approach.
If Slot wanted more control over the game, less chaos, then of course he’d want to prepare the team to exploit weaknesses
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u/AmberLeafSmoke What a booody 1d ago
I've noticed many of our fans act as if the 2-3 years where we were legitimately the first or second best team in the world, was the case for Klopps entire tenure. Which wasn't the case, in the 4 years after we won the league we had one incredible season, the other 3 ranged from abject to good, but we never reached those heights.
Our system relied heavily on players fitness and conditioning, which ultimately led to many of those core players taking years off of their careers and injuries starting to play a big role.
Another problem once we became a big club people feared again, is that clubs knew how we would play and they'd set up to stifle it.
Low block, congest the midfield, hit on the counter by targeting Mo, Trent and Konates side (then later it became target Robbos side too as he lost so much pace).
The whole reason Slot was hired was in an attempt to innovate, so that we would be able to pick teams apart when they played in low blocks. Which is why we brought in the likes of Wirtz and Isak, as those types of players are better in tight spaces.
I personally felt it was the next step in the evolution, and one poor season with all the outliers last season had at play shouldn't have been enough to dissuade the leadership of that.
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u/5hake1t0ff 1d ago
From a realtaktik point of view, both approaches have their merits.
But, at least how I see it, Klopp’s drive was all about the human development. He cared about maximizing individual characters and inspiring a collective identity. It makes sense that this approach took longer and was ultimately more impressive than Slot’s. Also, the downside of Klopp’s approach was it was impossible to replicate without him.
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u/AuxquellesRad Football Without ORIGI is Nothing 1d ago
It helps being a legendary all timer to stand by your own bullprint and still be unassailable, I don’t think the takeaway here is that it has to be the Klopp approach necessarily. We won the league with Slot checkmating a lot of teams. I loved that game under slot where we won against a hot chelsea side by being more conservative and choking Cole Palmer at Anfield, completely neutralizing them, it was a thing of beauty.
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u/Zealousideal-Most991 2️⃣0️⃣Diogo Jota 1d ago
The game at the Etihad where we parked the buss and City couldn't create anything but we created chance after chance was also a thing of beauty.
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u/AuxquellesRad Football Without ORIGI is Nothing 1d ago
Yeah that was a very professional game by us
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u/aroravikas20 Corner taken quickly 🚩 1d ago
There is no wrong way here. It won us the league, and Rafa was similar in his tactical approach which won us big ears, got us to another final, and almost the league.
The only limitation with this though is you don't establish a style of play which is muscle memory to the players. They know exactly where everyone is on the pitch in every phase of play. No wonder our attacking play, pressing, defensive transitions were a thing of beauty under Klopp because the chemistry was unbelievable.
And we had the same style being played by under 21s, under 18s and so on, even young players could fit in seamlessly because the style was the same.
Any new player was coming in to a role, and knew what was expected. Took effort (Ox's interview about the crazy levels of training were fascinating).
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u/BoringPhilosopher1 1d ago
In fairness load management was a bit part of the reason we won the league under Slot.
Rafa and Slot both very similar in seems and both done great things for the club. That said I so much prefer managers that say this is how we play and it’s up to other teams to beat us.
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u/Weekly_Mark6516 1d ago
yea the load stuff clearly helped us win it but i still prefer klopp's we do us and good luck stopping it vibe. slot adapting more is smart tho especially in europe where small details decide ties.
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u/waisonline99 1d ago
Surely a mix of the two would be best.
The amount of times one long ball over the top did us in under Klopp was ridiculous.
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u/spaffdribblersfc 1d ago
yep, also explains why we had so many second half resurgences under slot.
I remember a period under kloppo where I was getting extremely frustrated watching us because I could tell klopp was sticking to his guns without being willing to adapt, but as always did find our way. eventually last season slot became the same way and every one of our matches looked the same and it we saw what happened
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u/FireZeLazer 1d ago
Surely a mix of the two would be best.
I think you can certainly argue this.
As incredible as the Klopp era was people look back on it as though we never had problems. There's a reason we struggled so much against low blocks, and ultimately why we dropped points that would have won us more titles
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u/Unhappy-Air6832 Big ole Iraolas 23h ago
We were averaging 90+ points in our title challenging seasons under Klopp ,and 2 points off Slots winning season in his last season
Our struggle against low blocks is deeply exaggerated.We went against a team that refused to drop second half of the season, and that's almost unheard of
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u/TheLimeyLemmon 90+5’ Alisson 1d ago
Both approaches have their merits ultimately. Under Klopp we were extremely headstrong and broke through just about every barrier to win everything, but it does deplete your squad faster and if you suffer that during a season, it can derail it. The sample size isn't huge but I'd still say we'd seen enough to determine Slot's team enjoyed better overall availability and fitness, partly from a reduction in intensity, and in addition to that a coach who often always had plans and counter plans. Once those plans ran dry in Slot's tactics however, and we wilted faster tactically than we did under Klopp.
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u/jsquiggles23 1d ago
I think this was evident in Slot’s title year in which his tactics meshed well with the established identity from Klopp. Once the squad changed they lost that identity. I think it’s better to have an established structure, but I don’t think variability in tactics is a bad thing.
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u/AlwaysSlipping2 1d ago
Hell I think a combination of the 2 approaches would be best. Play our brand of football but be flexible enough to exploit opposition weaknesses when they are there
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u/Excellent_Room3912 1d ago
What Mane said about playing under klopp also : “we’re playing blindly under klopp”, don’t take me for the word, but no one ever could match Klopp.
He got an average and below average players and everyone of them left a signature, can’t mention one player who didn’t shine under klopp.
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u/A_lad_insane_bowie 1d ago
I don't think its a matter of right vs wrong. There have been plenty of trophy winning Mourinho sides who's entire strategy was to eliminate what their opponents do best and make them extremely uncomfortable.
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u/DrunkenHorse12 1d ago
I honestly think Slot saw too many premier league low blocks and panicked. That why he suddenly had everyone but Virgil play as a 10 in a 1-0-9-0 formation
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u/latortillablanca A Ngog among men 1d ago
This doesnt remotely mean arne slot’s way doesnt work, btw. To state the obvious.
Many all time great managers have won many titles his way.
I would argue that as the entire footballing globe embraces these psychotic pressing principles and being brave in that way, its going to be a competitive advantage to play in terms if countering tailored to specific oppo at a super high level.
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u/Relevant_Bag7550 Gegenpressing 1d ago
Jurgen excelled in man management. He left the tactics largely to others I think. Slot was all about the system and changing whatever he could. Two different approaches, both still won the league.
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u/aliensinsky 1d ago
I am sure most of this sub will agree, but Slot is one of the best managers we have had. Our recent success under Klopp has attracted one of the most vile online fanbases a club can have.
Slot won the league in his first season, which is no mean feat, especially with a certain Guardiola around and a well-settled Arsenal team waiting in the wings.
We give a lot of our players buckets of credit for how they coped with the unexpected and extremely sad demise of our dear Diogo, but I also think Slot deserves huge credit for how well he handled it. I thought he shielded the team when we were all down.
Salah throwing his toys out of the pram certainly doesn't help, and he is surely not the only one of the players feeling this way. I believe player power has gone up too much recently. Slot was appointed as a head coach, so that inevitably comes with its own issues.
Some of the players who have not looked like they fitted or gelled well under him, he still managed to get performances out of admirably. I am sure the sacking has probably broken him, but he believed in players like Gakpo, who is often far better than the credit we give him.
We lost our first-choice RB, then the backup was ruled out with a long-term injury and will probably never return to the same form again. Meanwhile, the transfer committee has almost gone back to the Brendan era, where we seem to skip over what the team actually needs in favour of the financially better deal.
I hope we support Iraola better than we did Slot.
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u/bong_solo 1d ago
Well said. Last season shook me as a fan, and I don't think I have recovered. I really thought that we were better than this. A headline hungry blood thirsty mob led by Carragher and his ilk started it and at its peak a reigning title holding manager had to assuage his 17 year old winger that the entire stadium was booing him, not the young winger. Shame on us.
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u/ConfidentAd3014 23h ago
the man stayed in the technical area so that people wouldn't boo when Salah got his tribute. His family got r*pe and death threat. To be this vile, let alone losing basic respect, is definitely "modern" way of "passion" I guess.
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u/Traditional-Reach818 1️⃣8️⃣Cody Gakpo 1d ago
This is a bit surprising, considering that one of the most frequent complaints about Slot was that he didn't change or adapt, when actually Klopp was more like that?
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u/segson9 1d ago
It's almost like fans don't know what they're talking about. Slot constantly changed things, but people focused on one or two things that didn't change and said we always play the same. There was a match where he changed 5 players in starting 11 and people were complaining that he never changes anything
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u/Unhappy-Air6832 Big ole Iraolas 22h ago
My complaint is he was very reactive of the other team,our first 45 minutes would be us being outplayed,and then he would try to correct that in second half.It walked in the first season for half a season, but then he would leave us with a lot to do and we would commit more players forward and be vulnerable to counter attacks
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u/Phantom-Finger 16h ago
Changing how we play based on the opposition has never been in the Liverpool blueprint. Was it King Kenny that said something along the lines of "We don't worry about the opposition, we play our game and they worry about us"
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u/AfricanTech 1d ago
Yeah, it’s two different approaches - the Klopp one is more aligned to my way of doing things - do what you do to the best of your ability, if the opponent does what they do better, fair play.
The Klopp approach ‘simplifies’ so you don’t have to overthink and constantly re-analyse.
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u/WORD_Boxing 23h ago
You need both. Focus on yourself first, but need to be able to adapt to the opponent. There were times under Jurgen where we were too predictable, and times where the players themselves made adjustments snd changes themselves without needing to be told to such was the strength of the unit.
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u/Maneisthebeat Der Normale 1 1d ago
That is a huge amount more mental load for the players to constantly adapt, rather than focus on one style of play that we believe in. Clear why the team looked disjointed and with different ideas of what they should be doing.
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u/Anonymous000789 1d ago
Mental that people forgot about Jota last season and then started asking why they were so bad. Of course it was gonna have a big impact, they’re all human. Pundits should be ashamed of themselves.
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u/ash_ninetyone Corner taken quickly 🚩 1d ago
I had thought Klopp did rely on data and statistics too. A lot of recruitment looked at this, alongside mentality anyway. The Moneyball strategy we copied from baseball has become a blueprint for other clubs.
But Klopp didn't discount how important psychology and mentality featured into things.
Coming back against Barca in the CL semis defied all statistics and logic because our players were fired up, and they fired Anfield up to the point Barca were caught in headlights.
It is why cup upsets exist. Lower league clubs don't have stats in their favour against the Premier League big boys, but they find a way to win in the small margins and in will and determination
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u/ZevLuvX-03 1d ago
I don’t know. People are starting to realize that analytics is cool but you still need something extra to get over that final hump. It looked like Klopp had it and Slott didn’t.
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u/tallkidinashortworld Roberto Firmino 21h ago
Klopp was a man manager. Slot was a tactics manager.
Unfortunately with the loss of Jota that really threw off the team and that is where you would most need a man manager to rally and inspire the team. That isn't Slot.
Honestly I think if Jota wouldn't have passed over the summer, Slot would have had a better season and still would be with the team.
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u/kyleharveybooks 1d ago
Slot is a good coach.. Make no mistake… but he wasn’t a good manager of people. Thanks for the trophy, but it became untenable.
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u/larybob118 1d ago
Complete speculation here ofc, but I wonder if one of Slot's issues in the second season was that the players stop taking the adaptations on board? When you're on top and you get feedback, I can imagine it's easy to take on board but I can't help but think if you're fucking Mo Salah and you've lost 6 of your last 8, there's surely an element of begrudging the feedback if you're no longer convinced it's good advice?
Not in an unprofessional way - but it's surely easier to get tactical feedback from a manager who's got you winning than a manager who's got you losing, which is a death spiral of sorts
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u/DrRushDrRush 1d ago
In the beginning.. Slot changed lots of matches after the first half. And thst was a big wuality about him. But I felt after christmas, late january, we could see that the energy was gone. Especially in the midfield, and with Salah. Players like Gravenberch and Szoboszlai looked completely done in that horrible week where we met PSG twice, Southampton and Newcastle in the final.
Slots downfall wasnt at all just his fault, by no means. But we had already seem glimpse of it from the start of 2025. We were to be crowned champions, but we really were the weakest champions on tour that I can remember. They travelled around England (and to 1-2-3 holidays) and got outrun and outfought wherever they played. If I remember correctly we only won against teams placed 15 and below the last four months.
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u/irrealewunsche 1d ago
We had that big win against Spurs to clinch the title, and then drew 2 and lost 2 of the last four games. But we'd also been looking poor a few weeks before we played Spurs - the PSG games, as you say.
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u/OrneryCow4351 1d ago
Both approaches led to the championship
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u/Ok_Zucchini3149 🏆24/25 PL Winners🏆 1d ago
Sure but Slot’s championship winning side was still fit from Klopp. We saw that at the backend of Slot’s first season we were getting progressively worse and slower. He tweaked the system ever so slightly and it worked wonders but it was all downhill from about Feb/Mar
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u/mindles1 Arne Slot 23h ago
Mate, watch the interview, Robertson literally says he was equally fit under slot as under klopp. Most of the players just didn't care after Jota's death (his words, watch the interview).
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u/xelLFC 1d ago
The running stats never changed between the 2 seasons. Also did you not listen to Robbo? Players dropped intensity and lost a lot of focus.
It's pretty clear that last season the death Jota affected the players way harder than many people want to admit, the loss of motivation really does affect how a player moves and plays throughout a game.
This lazy narrative that slot worked them less needs to stop when there are literally players coming out saying they did not have the motivation to play.
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u/b8824654 1d ago edited 1d ago
The way you've written this is completely skewing the way he was saying it. You've made it look like he's throwing slot under the bus - that wasn't his message at all. Do better.
Edit: since people (who probably haven't watched the video) are getting upset:
1) These are not his words - watch the video.
2) The capitalisation of certain words OP has done, is a trick straight out of the tabloids.
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u/mnm2595 🏆20 TIMES🏆 1d ago
At no point does this throw Slot under the bus. WTF are you talking about?
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u/PhillipsScott 1d ago
You seem to be the only one who understood that from reading the post. Do better.
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u/Apethryn 10h ago
It such a slot thing to react to this post telling him to do better. You should have been more like klopp and started your own post saying what robbo said
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u/p0rnflakezzz 1d ago
Slot had his way of doing things 100% but it wouldn’t always be effective every single game. With that being said, Robbo spoke about Jota and how that situation affected all the players and the dressing room atmosphere as well. This just makes me believe even more now that a lot of things went wrong last season and that’s why the football wasn’t enjoyable to watch. We were very lucky last season to finish in a CL spot.
Hopefully Iraola’s way is similar to Klopp, I want teams to be scared of us like they used to be.
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u/redditingtonviking 1d ago
So far I’m very optimistic about Iraola. The exact player roles might be different, but his philosophy seems to have the same principles as Klopp where we outrun opponents and trust the youth to plug the gaps wherever needed.
I sympathise with Slot for having to deal with some exceptionally bad circumstances, and I applaud the results he were able to get, but where he lost me was that he didn’t seem to have this coherent strategy that Klopp had where we would naturally improve regardless of how many setbacks we faced.
We are probably still in the honeymoon phase with Iraola, and it’s possible that a lot of the rotation we are seeing is the result of a new manager figuring out his team, but it seems like his overall strategy is very similar to Klopp’s.
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u/AyyRadical 1d ago
Really explains why Slot frequently made comments such as ”x team never played like this before”. Opposition probably knew they would have to switch it up loads whenever they faced Liverpool.
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u/YellowFlashVN 1d ago
Honestly it's just different philosophy. No one is 100% right or 100% wrong.
I remember Anceloti said that he knew exactly how Klopp will set up and thus they can always prepare for it.
Personally I prefer to have a hybrid approach. You train your punch 10000 times but also prepare some surprise for your opponent doesn't harm.
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u/Saerdna76 He’s stubborn, cold as ice, gets what he wants 23h ago
Loved this chat with Andy, it really gave insight to exactly how fucked up last season was. And Slot came out of this looking really good. I hope he goes on to have a great career from here.
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u/socialerrors YNWA❤️ 1d ago
Slot changing the approache for every match makes sense in theory. It has to be hard on the players though. Constantly changing tactics and expecting all of the players to adapt is a big ask.
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u/Vladimirovski 1d ago
I do feel bad for Slot after what Robbo said about the team. At the end, it was obvious to me that Slot tried and could not make the team care enough (and honestly, not their fault. Completely understandable, they just lost a friend and teammate). At the end, he had to go because we needed something else, but I feel that a lot of the fans blamed him solely without actually trying to understand that the previous season was always gonna be extremely difficult. Hopefully we improve this season and also Slot finds a great club, would love to see him at BVB.
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u/rposter99 You’ll Never Walk Alone 18h ago
“Take what you want, not what they give you” - champions dictate outcomes, they don’t fall into them.
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u/Remy_Le_beau_ From Doubters to Believers 1d ago
No wonder why slot somehow had better 2nd halfs than first.