Lemonade Money
Les Medley
Plenty of stupid people who lap it up, just look at the muppets on here.
-
Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara
New New Manager Poll (The Lets Get It Right This Time Edition)
- Thread starter Gutter Boy
- Start date
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
Losing and conceding 5 to Everton who are awful though….
And potter won there with Ostersund and Brighton twice
Brighton are now arsenals bogey team
I was wondering about that too a while back. De Zerbi took over at Shakhtar in May 2021 so possibly before Paratici got involved in our Manager search.
alekaras
The ITK of IDK
Sorry if this has already been posted. An article about Slot from the Athletic.
Arne Slot – a champion with Feyenoord and a manager coveted by the Premier League
Nick Miller
May 14, 2023
57
In 2020-21, the season before Arne Slot became their manager, Feyenoord finished 29 points behind champions Ajax. They came fifth, the same number of points from the top of the table as they were from the bottom three, with the football under dingdong Advocaat very uninspiring.
Two years later and the Rotterdam club are champions following Sunday’s win at home to Go Ahead Eagles, with two games to spare having spent virtually the whole season leading the Eredivisie. They last lost a league game in September, when they succumbed to a late goal in a 4-3 defeat at PSV Eindhoven.
Theirs has been a remarkable turnaround but, perhaps more than just results, it has been the way Feyenoord have won this title that will ensure Slot is in demand in the summer. High-energy, attacking, exciting football are the markers of his teams, but they win, too. And win a lot. In England alone, Tottenham, Leeds, Crystal Palace and a few others will be looking for a new head coach. Slot will likely be on most of those lists.
So what sort of coach might they be targeting? Will he be the latest Dutchman to come to England and make sense of a chaotic Premier League club? And who exactly is Arne Slot?
Arne Slot was slow.
As a player, Slot was a perfectly decent midfielder, with the bulk of his appearances coming in the Dutch second tier. He was technically very good, usually playing as an attacking midfielder or No 10 but, in the words of his former team-mate Edwin de Graaf, he was “not so fast”. Slot the coach once said that he would not have picked Slot the player.
This meant he had to rely on others around him to do a lot of the running. “I was a hard worker, he was the more technical player,” says De Graaf, who played alongside him at NAC Breda.
Slot challenges Saudi Sportswashing Machine’s Nolberto Solano (Photo: Adam Davy/EMPICS via Getty Images)
But his limitations as a player have helped him become the coach he is today because they enhanced his appreciation of how to make a team function as a cohesive unit. He was living proof that one player cannot do his job unless a colleague is doing theirs.
He was always going to be a coach, moving from the playing squad to the coaching staff at PEC Zwolle immediately after his retirement.
“Some players you can see are going to be coaches,” says De Graaf. “I also played with Alfred Schreuder (the former Ajax manager) and both him and Slot… nobody is surprised now they’re both coaches.
“He would ask the coach why they were using certain tactics. And in the dressing room, he would talk to the group about (for example) a way of pressing or defending. He would ask: ‘Why were we doing it this way? Would it be better to do it this way?’. He would make suggestions to his coaches.
“But he would do it in such a good way. He wouldn’t do it with an attitude: he would ask the coach: ‘What do you think about this?’. He would also very quickly see what the opponents were doing.”
Slot is carried off by his PEC Zwolle team-mates (Photo: VI Images via Getty Images)
“At that time, he was already looking in an analytical way,” Henk ten Cate, who brought Slot to Breda, told Voetbal International last year. “He was busy with tactics and asked questions at training.”
It is worth noting this was not when Slot was in the twilight of his career and was worrying about what would come next. Slot and Ten Cate worked together in 2002/03 when Slot was 24. He was one of those players who used his time on the pitch as an extended apprenticeship for when he moved to the touchline.
Slot hung up his boots in 2013 after playing for PEC Zwolle and immediately joined the club’s youth academy as a coach.
He then spent three years as a coach at Cambuur, who had just been promoted to the Eredivisie, after which he moved to AZ Alkmaar to be assistant to manager John van den Brom, still only 39 when he took that job. “We always searched for young, new coaches,” says Van den Brom. “He was an interesting coach because he wanted to develop.”
It was during these years Slot clarified what sort of football he wanted to play, helped by a series of formative relationships with other coaches.
At AZ, there was Van den Brom and Marcel Jansen (now AZ’s head coach), while at Cambuur he worked closely with Marcel Keizer, who would go on to manage Ajax and Sporting Lisbon. He also shared ideas with Pep Ljinders, now Jurgen Klopp’s assistant at Liverpool, and, with a group of other coaches, created a bespoke player database. At the time, the data resources available to them were far from adequate, so they built their own.
“What was nice for me is that he always thought in an attacking way,” says Van den Brom, before mentioning something that comes up time and again whenever you speak to someone about Slot.
“(His focus was) how can we make it clear to the players how we want to play? We were always searching for different ideas.”
Van den Brom consults with Slot on the AZ bench (Photo: Ed van de Pol/Soccrates/Getty Images)
It is fine for a coach to have ideas, but they have to be clearly transmitted to the players. Slot’s biggest quality and one he places significant emphasis on — he believes only 60 per cent is the idea and 40 per cent is how clearly you explain it — is his ability to communicate. His ideas are projected onto the pitch because his thoughts are clear and his words are carefully chosen.
So what are those ideas?
“They’re very attacking, very aggressive, with a lot of pressing,” says Martijn Krabbendam, a journalist for Voetbal International who has covered Slot’s Feyenoord. “High intensity, a lot of energy, and they can only do that if they’re very fit.
“He always wants to play attacking football, he always wants possession, he always wants a good set-up from the goalkeeper to find free space and free players in the midfield. It’s no secret he is crazy about Guardiola — he’s an example.”
Van den Brom adds: “We used a lot of videos of Emirates Marketing Project and Bayern — he was crazy about Pep. How his teams create space, how they attack.”
Guardiola is the name that keeps coming up, but Slot also takes inspiration from a variety of other coaches: Marcelo Bielsa, Jorge Sampaoli, Jurgen Klopp, Luciano Spaletti, Mikel Arteta. All have their own ideas, so does he, but one thing they all have in common is their intensity.
Before he became Breda coach, De Graaf spent a week with Slot at Feyenoord, observing how he works. “Every session is with high intensity,” he says. “Every workout, passing drill, or five vs five — everything is with high intention and everything is with an idea. Every player knows exactly what he wants from them. He’s good at making clear why he’s doing certain exercises.
“He’s as honest as possible, so the players really like him.”
Slot believes his teams have to be intense because it essentially gives them two ways to win: if the quality of their play is lower than that of their opponents or they are having an off day, they can win by outrunning and outworking whoever they are playing.
There is also a recognition of, and mitigation against, the fitness concerns that come with such an intense style of not just playing, but training. He works closely with his data and fitness teams: when they tell him a player’s numbers are dropping or they are in the ‘red zone’, he will ease off.
Transitions are quick and passing is certain. Slot likes to work with younger players who are keen to learn. “If you have a young group, then, as a trainer, you can take the boys through videos in your desired playing style,” he said a few years ago.
For example, when Tyrell Malacia left last summer for Manchester United, he chose to replace him at left-back with the 20-year-old youth team product Quilindschy Hartman. When he needed a central midfielder, he took 22-year-old Mats Wieffer from Excelsior Rotterdam in the Dutch second tier. Both were subsequently called up to the Dutch national team. Most of the key players this season are 24 and under — there are only three outfielders in the squad who are older than 25.
Hartman was promoted by Slot (Photo: Claudio Pasquazi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Arne Slot – a champion with Feyenoord and a manager coveted by the Premier League
Nick Miller
May 14, 2023
57
In 2020-21, the season before Arne Slot became their manager, Feyenoord finished 29 points behind champions Ajax. They came fifth, the same number of points from the top of the table as they were from the bottom three, with the football under dingdong Advocaat very uninspiring.
Two years later and the Rotterdam club are champions following Sunday’s win at home to Go Ahead Eagles, with two games to spare having spent virtually the whole season leading the Eredivisie. They last lost a league game in September, when they succumbed to a late goal in a 4-3 defeat at PSV Eindhoven.
Theirs has been a remarkable turnaround but, perhaps more than just results, it has been the way Feyenoord have won this title that will ensure Slot is in demand in the summer. High-energy, attacking, exciting football are the markers of his teams, but they win, too. And win a lot. In England alone, Tottenham, Leeds, Crystal Palace and a few others will be looking for a new head coach. Slot will likely be on most of those lists.
So what sort of coach might they be targeting? Will he be the latest Dutchman to come to England and make sense of a chaotic Premier League club? And who exactly is Arne Slot?
Arne Slot was slow.
As a player, Slot was a perfectly decent midfielder, with the bulk of his appearances coming in the Dutch second tier. He was technically very good, usually playing as an attacking midfielder or No 10 but, in the words of his former team-mate Edwin de Graaf, he was “not so fast”. Slot the coach once said that he would not have picked Slot the player.
This meant he had to rely on others around him to do a lot of the running. “I was a hard worker, he was the more technical player,” says De Graaf, who played alongside him at NAC Breda.
Slot challenges Saudi Sportswashing Machine’s Nolberto Solano (Photo: Adam Davy/EMPICS via Getty Images)
But his limitations as a player have helped him become the coach he is today because they enhanced his appreciation of how to make a team function as a cohesive unit. He was living proof that one player cannot do his job unless a colleague is doing theirs.
He was always going to be a coach, moving from the playing squad to the coaching staff at PEC Zwolle immediately after his retirement.
“Some players you can see are going to be coaches,” says De Graaf. “I also played with Alfred Schreuder (the former Ajax manager) and both him and Slot… nobody is surprised now they’re both coaches.
“He would ask the coach why they were using certain tactics. And in the dressing room, he would talk to the group about (for example) a way of pressing or defending. He would ask: ‘Why were we doing it this way? Would it be better to do it this way?’. He would make suggestions to his coaches.
“But he would do it in such a good way. He wouldn’t do it with an attitude: he would ask the coach: ‘What do you think about this?’. He would also very quickly see what the opponents were doing.”
Slot is carried off by his PEC Zwolle team-mates (Photo: VI Images via Getty Images)
“At that time, he was already looking in an analytical way,” Henk ten Cate, who brought Slot to Breda, told Voetbal International last year. “He was busy with tactics and asked questions at training.”
It is worth noting this was not when Slot was in the twilight of his career and was worrying about what would come next. Slot and Ten Cate worked together in 2002/03 when Slot was 24. He was one of those players who used his time on the pitch as an extended apprenticeship for when he moved to the touchline.
Slot hung up his boots in 2013 after playing for PEC Zwolle and immediately joined the club’s youth academy as a coach.
He then spent three years as a coach at Cambuur, who had just been promoted to the Eredivisie, after which he moved to AZ Alkmaar to be assistant to manager John van den Brom, still only 39 when he took that job. “We always searched for young, new coaches,” says Van den Brom. “He was an interesting coach because he wanted to develop.”
It was during these years Slot clarified what sort of football he wanted to play, helped by a series of formative relationships with other coaches.
At AZ, there was Van den Brom and Marcel Jansen (now AZ’s head coach), while at Cambuur he worked closely with Marcel Keizer, who would go on to manage Ajax and Sporting Lisbon. He also shared ideas with Pep Ljinders, now Jurgen Klopp’s assistant at Liverpool, and, with a group of other coaches, created a bespoke player database. At the time, the data resources available to them were far from adequate, so they built their own.
“What was nice for me is that he always thought in an attacking way,” says Van den Brom, before mentioning something that comes up time and again whenever you speak to someone about Slot.
“(His focus was) how can we make it clear to the players how we want to play? We were always searching for different ideas.”
Van den Brom consults with Slot on the AZ bench (Photo: Ed van de Pol/Soccrates/Getty Images)
It is fine for a coach to have ideas, but they have to be clearly transmitted to the players. Slot’s biggest quality and one he places significant emphasis on — he believes only 60 per cent is the idea and 40 per cent is how clearly you explain it — is his ability to communicate. His ideas are projected onto the pitch because his thoughts are clear and his words are carefully chosen.
So what are those ideas?
“They’re very attacking, very aggressive, with a lot of pressing,” says Martijn Krabbendam, a journalist for Voetbal International who has covered Slot’s Feyenoord. “High intensity, a lot of energy, and they can only do that if they’re very fit.
“He always wants to play attacking football, he always wants possession, he always wants a good set-up from the goalkeeper to find free space and free players in the midfield. It’s no secret he is crazy about Guardiola — he’s an example.”
Van den Brom adds: “We used a lot of videos of Emirates Marketing Project and Bayern — he was crazy about Pep. How his teams create space, how they attack.”
Guardiola is the name that keeps coming up, but Slot also takes inspiration from a variety of other coaches: Marcelo Bielsa, Jorge Sampaoli, Jurgen Klopp, Luciano Spaletti, Mikel Arteta. All have their own ideas, so does he, but one thing they all have in common is their intensity.
Before he became Breda coach, De Graaf spent a week with Slot at Feyenoord, observing how he works. “Every session is with high intensity,” he says. “Every workout, passing drill, or five vs five — everything is with high intention and everything is with an idea. Every player knows exactly what he wants from them. He’s good at making clear why he’s doing certain exercises.
“He’s as honest as possible, so the players really like him.”
Slot believes his teams have to be intense because it essentially gives them two ways to win: if the quality of their play is lower than that of their opponents or they are having an off day, they can win by outrunning and outworking whoever they are playing.
There is also a recognition of, and mitigation against, the fitness concerns that come with such an intense style of not just playing, but training. He works closely with his data and fitness teams: when they tell him a player’s numbers are dropping or they are in the ‘red zone’, he will ease off.
Transitions are quick and passing is certain. Slot likes to work with younger players who are keen to learn. “If you have a young group, then, as a trainer, you can take the boys through videos in your desired playing style,” he said a few years ago.
For example, when Tyrell Malacia left last summer for Manchester United, he chose to replace him at left-back with the 20-year-old youth team product Quilindschy Hartman. When he needed a central midfielder, he took 22-year-old Mats Wieffer from Excelsior Rotterdam in the Dutch second tier. Both were subsequently called up to the Dutch national team. Most of the key players this season are 24 and under — there are only three outfielders in the squad who are older than 25.
Hartman was promoted by Slot (Photo: Claudio Pasquazi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
alekaras
The ITK of IDK
His focus is on the collective. He believes the team makes the individual look good.
Most of all, the priority is on entertaining football. The goal is not to win at any cost, but to provide exciting, as well as winning, football. Voetbal International wrote: “He believes that special football is more remembered than a prize with boring, uninspiring football.”
Players seem to adore Slot.
Oussama Idrissi, who has been a key part of Slot’s teams at both AZ and Feyenoord, was asked recently by the Dutch newspaper AD where Slot ranks in the coaches he has played under. “For me, he’s the best,” said the Moroccan winger. “He can develop players and make teams play fun football.”
When it was pointed out that he has also played under Julen Lopetegui, Herve Renard and a guy called Erik ten Hag, Idrissi reiterated: “Slot was the best.”
You will not struggle to find other players with similarly effusive things to say about him. “He is one of the best managers I’ve ever seen,” said Alireza Jahanbakhsh, the Iranian forward currently playing under Slot at Feyenoord. “In football terms, even the best. At the moment, he is the best in the Netherlands.”
Reiss Nelson spent last season on loan at Feyenoord, becoming a regular in the second half of the campaign. “Arne Slot is a great manager,” he told the Colney Carpool podcast. “He really got me into my rhythm. He gave me a lot of opportunities to play and I excelled.”
“It’s a shame,” said Myron Boadu, shortly after Slot left AZ. “Arne is a fantastic person and a fantastic trainer who really let us play football in the style of Emirates Marketing Project or Barcelona in the good times.”
“He’s as honest as possible, so the players really like him,” says De Graaf.
Nelson enjoyed life under Feyenoord last season (Photo: Pim Waslander/Soccrates/Getty Images)
Slot has not gained the backing of these players just by being straightforward, though. The players like him because they win under him. But, perhaps more than that, they follow him because most of the things he tells them come true.
“Before the game against Marseille (in the Europa Conference League) last season, during training he told his midfielders to play long balls out to the wingers, over the top,” explains Krabbendam. “(Orkun) Kokcu, the midfielder, was so tired of it — he asked: ‘Why do we have to keep playing these long balls?’. Slot said he would explain later.
“In 20 minutes, Feyenoord were up 2-0 and both goals came from long balls behind the Marseille defence. He knew that was a weakness of Marseille. If you speak to the Feyenoord players — and it doesn’t matter which players — they will tell you that whatever this coach says, it happens. It’s remarkable. They have blind confidence in him because what he says comes true.”
He is no hardliner or a particular disciplinarian. He emphasises positivity. When his video analysts put selections of clips together for players to watch, allowing them to scrutinise their own performances, he asks that most of them are positive. In particular, the last one is always positive so the players leave their session feeling good about themselves.
Arguably, the player who has most benefitted from Slot’s tenure at Feyenoord has been Kokcu, who came through the ranks at Feyenoord.
Kokcu (centre) has excelled (Photo: ANP via Getty Images)
Previously regarded as a talented but slightly insubstantial No 10, Kokcu came back from Euro 2020 with Turkey to find things had changed. No longer would he be able to create and let his team-mates do his running for him.
After Slot’s first competitive game in charge, a Europa Conference League game against Kosovan side SF Drita, the new coach sat down next to Kokcu on the flight home and explained that he needed more from him. More running, more pressing, more chasing back. And it worked.
Even after only a few weeks of working together, Slot convinced Kokcu that he had to significantly improve physically.
Kokcu is close friends with Malacia (the two came through the Feyenoord youth team together) and had observed the defender’s physical development since he started working with a physical trainer in Rotterdam. Kokcu went to the same trainer and, within weeks, had become the worker Slot demanded.
“If you see him now, he’s a modern midfield player,” says Krabbendam.
To illustrate this point, take a look at this touch chart for Kokcu in Feyenoord’s Europa League quarter-final first-leg victory over Roma in April. The concentration is in the middle, but there are very few areas of the pitch he did not cover.
The disruption to football caused by COVID-19 produced many ‘what ifs’, but there cannot be many bigger than for Slot.
In his first season as AZ head coach, they had already beaten Feyenoord and PSV 3-0 and 4-0 away respectively before a 2-0 win at Ajax in March 2020 put them level on points at the top of the Eredivisie with the Amsterdam giants. There were still nine games remaining but AZ had the momentum.
The following week, the season was suspended as the pandemic took hold. The campaign was ultimately cancelled completely in April and the chance to win just the third title in AZ’s history was scuppered.
They started the following season in similar style, going undefeated until the start of December. Then it all ended quite abruptly.
Feyenoord announced that veteran manager Advocaat would be leaving at the end of that campaign. Slot was the obvious replacement but, a few days later, the AZ board got wind of talks between Slot and the Rotterdam club and promptly sacked him. He was clearly ready for a step up, but it was far from the way he wanted to leave the club.
“You always want to leave by the front door,” says Van den Brom. “So it wasn’t good for Arne and it wasn’t good for the club.”
He spent the intervening months playing golf and planning for the move.
And boy did those plans work. The improvement in Feyenoord’s football — and results — was almost instant, moving from a distant fifth to a closer third, scoring more goals, conceding fewer and winning more games. They also reached the Europa Conference League final, where they lost to Roma. Slot won the Rinus Michels award for best coach in the Eredivisie.
If you want to quantify Feyenoord’s improvement under Slot, consider FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index (above), which uses underlying metrics to calculate a team’s attacking and defensive strength. Slot’s arrival at the club coincided with a steady rise up the rankings. They are now on a score of 76.6, the 21st-highest in world football. Not bad for an Eredivisie club.
But here is perhaps the most compelling evidence that Slot has something.
In the summer after that first season, his Feyenoord team was gutted. Top-scorer Luis Sinisterra was sold to Leeds. Malacia went to United. Marcos Senesi to Bournemouth. Nelson’s loan spell ended and he returned to Arsenal. Midfielder Fredrik Aursnes joined Benfica. Guus Til (on loan at Feyenoord) moved to PSV. All four players who had chalked up double-figure goal tallies the previous season had left.
Of the team that started that Conference League final under a year ago, only four remain at the club.
And yet, Feyenoord improved. Kokcu and a few others stayed, but in came Santiago Gimenez, who has gone on to be their top scorer. Slovakian defender David Hancko arrived from Sparta Prague and excelled. Idrissi, who starred for Slot at AZ, was rescued from Sevilla on loan. Wieffer and Hartman were essentially plucked from nowhere and are now full internationals.
Slot advises Gimenez (Photo: ANP via Getty Images)
They took top spot in the Eredvisie just before the World Cup break and have not relinquished it since.
Now they are champions. Despite being one of the ‘big three’ Dutch clubs, alongside Ajax and PSV, Feyenoord’s recent trophy count is relatively modest. Before this season, they had only won the Eredivisie once since the turn of the century, so this success shouldn’t be underestimated.
GO DEEPER
Derby Days, Amsterdam: De Klassieker
What next for Arne Slot?
That has yet to be decided, but any club that wants a young, forward-thinking coach who prioritises fast, intense, attacking football would be foolish not to take a look.
Most of all, the priority is on entertaining football. The goal is not to win at any cost, but to provide exciting, as well as winning, football. Voetbal International wrote: “He believes that special football is more remembered than a prize with boring, uninspiring football.”
Players seem to adore Slot.
Oussama Idrissi, who has been a key part of Slot’s teams at both AZ and Feyenoord, was asked recently by the Dutch newspaper AD where Slot ranks in the coaches he has played under. “For me, he’s the best,” said the Moroccan winger. “He can develop players and make teams play fun football.”
When it was pointed out that he has also played under Julen Lopetegui, Herve Renard and a guy called Erik ten Hag, Idrissi reiterated: “Slot was the best.”
You will not struggle to find other players with similarly effusive things to say about him. “He is one of the best managers I’ve ever seen,” said Alireza Jahanbakhsh, the Iranian forward currently playing under Slot at Feyenoord. “In football terms, even the best. At the moment, he is the best in the Netherlands.”
Reiss Nelson spent last season on loan at Feyenoord, becoming a regular in the second half of the campaign. “Arne Slot is a great manager,” he told the Colney Carpool podcast. “He really got me into my rhythm. He gave me a lot of opportunities to play and I excelled.”
“It’s a shame,” said Myron Boadu, shortly after Slot left AZ. “Arne is a fantastic person and a fantastic trainer who really let us play football in the style of Emirates Marketing Project or Barcelona in the good times.”
“He’s as honest as possible, so the players really like him,” says De Graaf.
Nelson enjoyed life under Feyenoord last season (Photo: Pim Waslander/Soccrates/Getty Images)
Slot has not gained the backing of these players just by being straightforward, though. The players like him because they win under him. But, perhaps more than that, they follow him because most of the things he tells them come true.
“Before the game against Marseille (in the Europa Conference League) last season, during training he told his midfielders to play long balls out to the wingers, over the top,” explains Krabbendam. “(Orkun) Kokcu, the midfielder, was so tired of it — he asked: ‘Why do we have to keep playing these long balls?’. Slot said he would explain later.
“In 20 minutes, Feyenoord were up 2-0 and both goals came from long balls behind the Marseille defence. He knew that was a weakness of Marseille. If you speak to the Feyenoord players — and it doesn’t matter which players — they will tell you that whatever this coach says, it happens. It’s remarkable. They have blind confidence in him because what he says comes true.”
He is no hardliner or a particular disciplinarian. He emphasises positivity. When his video analysts put selections of clips together for players to watch, allowing them to scrutinise their own performances, he asks that most of them are positive. In particular, the last one is always positive so the players leave their session feeling good about themselves.
Arguably, the player who has most benefitted from Slot’s tenure at Feyenoord has been Kokcu, who came through the ranks at Feyenoord.
Kokcu (centre) has excelled (Photo: ANP via Getty Images)
Previously regarded as a talented but slightly insubstantial No 10, Kokcu came back from Euro 2020 with Turkey to find things had changed. No longer would he be able to create and let his team-mates do his running for him.
After Slot’s first competitive game in charge, a Europa Conference League game against Kosovan side SF Drita, the new coach sat down next to Kokcu on the flight home and explained that he needed more from him. More running, more pressing, more chasing back. And it worked.
Even after only a few weeks of working together, Slot convinced Kokcu that he had to significantly improve physically.
Kokcu is close friends with Malacia (the two came through the Feyenoord youth team together) and had observed the defender’s physical development since he started working with a physical trainer in Rotterdam. Kokcu went to the same trainer and, within weeks, had become the worker Slot demanded.
“If you see him now, he’s a modern midfield player,” says Krabbendam.
To illustrate this point, take a look at this touch chart for Kokcu in Feyenoord’s Europa League quarter-final first-leg victory over Roma in April. The concentration is in the middle, but there are very few areas of the pitch he did not cover.
The disruption to football caused by COVID-19 produced many ‘what ifs’, but there cannot be many bigger than for Slot.
In his first season as AZ head coach, they had already beaten Feyenoord and PSV 3-0 and 4-0 away respectively before a 2-0 win at Ajax in March 2020 put them level on points at the top of the Eredivisie with the Amsterdam giants. There were still nine games remaining but AZ had the momentum.
The following week, the season was suspended as the pandemic took hold. The campaign was ultimately cancelled completely in April and the chance to win just the third title in AZ’s history was scuppered.
They started the following season in similar style, going undefeated until the start of December. Then it all ended quite abruptly.
Feyenoord announced that veteran manager Advocaat would be leaving at the end of that campaign. Slot was the obvious replacement but, a few days later, the AZ board got wind of talks between Slot and the Rotterdam club and promptly sacked him. He was clearly ready for a step up, but it was far from the way he wanted to leave the club.
“You always want to leave by the front door,” says Van den Brom. “So it wasn’t good for Arne and it wasn’t good for the club.”
He spent the intervening months playing golf and planning for the move.
And boy did those plans work. The improvement in Feyenoord’s football — and results — was almost instant, moving from a distant fifth to a closer third, scoring more goals, conceding fewer and winning more games. They also reached the Europa Conference League final, where they lost to Roma. Slot won the Rinus Michels award for best coach in the Eredivisie.
If you want to quantify Feyenoord’s improvement under Slot, consider FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index (above), which uses underlying metrics to calculate a team’s attacking and defensive strength. Slot’s arrival at the club coincided with a steady rise up the rankings. They are now on a score of 76.6, the 21st-highest in world football. Not bad for an Eredivisie club.
But here is perhaps the most compelling evidence that Slot has something.
In the summer after that first season, his Feyenoord team was gutted. Top-scorer Luis Sinisterra was sold to Leeds. Malacia went to United. Marcos Senesi to Bournemouth. Nelson’s loan spell ended and he returned to Arsenal. Midfielder Fredrik Aursnes joined Benfica. Guus Til (on loan at Feyenoord) moved to PSV. All four players who had chalked up double-figure goal tallies the previous season had left.
Of the team that started that Conference League final under a year ago, only four remain at the club.
And yet, Feyenoord improved. Kokcu and a few others stayed, but in came Santiago Gimenez, who has gone on to be their top scorer. Slovakian defender David Hancko arrived from Sparta Prague and excelled. Idrissi, who starred for Slot at AZ, was rescued from Sevilla on loan. Wieffer and Hartman were essentially plucked from nowhere and are now full internationals.
Slot advises Gimenez (Photo: ANP via Getty Images)
They took top spot in the Eredvisie just before the World Cup break and have not relinquished it since.
Now they are champions. Despite being one of the ‘big three’ Dutch clubs, alongside Ajax and PSV, Feyenoord’s recent trophy count is relatively modest. Before this season, they had only won the Eredivisie once since the turn of the century, so this success shouldn’t be underestimated.
GO DEEPER
Derby Days, Amsterdam: De Klassieker
What next for Arne Slot?
That has yet to be decided, but any club that wants a young, forward-thinking coach who prioritises fast, intense, attacking football would be foolish not to take a look.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
He should be
What he has done in his career as a coach is literally as good as he possibly could
Would have win a title with AZ
Has won the i title with feynoord
Made a European final at first time of asking
Cup final too
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Which list? The one Paratici left on his desk. Or the one Munn is going to start on 1 July?
Hotspur75
Thimotée Atouba
Here in the Netherlands in the last few days, there was persistent talk of Slot joining us. At a high-profile punditry programme, they even asked him about Spurs. He said he would not comment on any speculation right now, certainly not on individual clubs being mentioned. But he did everything he could to not say that he was going to stay at Feyenoord. If he wanted to, today would have been the day - in front of 60.000 celebrating fans. But he didn't. I am beginning to think it's not unlikely that he has already spoken to us, and that he won't be able to resist the challenge. Might just be a very good appointment. People here rate him higher than Ten Hag after how he improved Feyenoord in the last two years with next to no funds.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
I was told a few weeks back we had already appointed him and it was common knowledge …
That game from a guy whose a coach at twente
Hotspur75
Thimotée Atouba
Common knowledge - no. But it's possible for sure. He is quite straight in his communication, which is why talking around a question like the one Dutch journalists are currently asking him about staying or leaving is so unusual. And he knows what he wants: he was sacked by AZ midway through the season because he had already spoken to Feyenoord back in 2021. So he has a track record of looking ahead. I am convinced that he is leaving, and he is on record that he dreams of working in the PL.
Reading the above article, he really does seem an ideal fit for us and checks all the criteria. I actually like how he's not the biggest name out there we could go for which will temper fans expectations (although naturally Spurs fans being Spurs fans expectations will still be pretty high
). And enjoy how he made the team stronger despite losing a lot of important players, these are all skills ideal for working at Spurs.
I wanted Nagelsman but the more I read on Slot the more I like and winning the league with Feyenord is definitely quite an accomplishment. Would be happy if we got him in....
). And enjoy how he made the team stronger despite losing a lot of important players, these are all skills ideal for working at Spurs.I wanted Nagelsman but the more I read on Slot the more I like and winning the league with Feyenord is definitely quite an accomplishment. Would be happy if we got him in....
superspurs
Justin Edinburgh
"He's got no hair but we don't care Arne, Arne Slot..."
Yeh go on then.
Yeh go on then.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
yep
Sorry the common knowledge comment was the
Guy who told me talked as if it was common knowledge rather than “new”
Hotspur75
Thimotée Atouba
And maybe just to add to that: it is very likely that Levy would regard him as a good fit. At Ajax, Ten Hag and his successors have spent very lavishly on players - Tadic and Blind in 2018-19, Klaassen, Bergwijn, Bassey, Berghuis in subsequent summers. They even bought back their own former youth player, Brian Brobbey, from Leipzig for a considerable sum (€18m) after he had left them for Leipzig on a Bosman the previous year. In contrast, Slot got very little money to invest. Last summer €7m for Hancko from Sparta Prague was considered a significant outlay for Feyenoord. He developed unknown youth players like Wieffer and Hartman who have since been capped by the national team - quite Poch-around-2014-like I would say - although for Slot it has been more a case of good fortune, not an ideology. He would not expect ENIC to spend big, or at the very least he would not complain if they did not invest heavily.
Interestingly enough, he has attempted to share some of the credit for his current success with Frank Arnesen - by whom he was hired at Feyenoord, and who was then unceremoniously sacked at DoF at the start of this season.
Gazza Dazzla
Chris Perry
Good!
Gazza
Frederic Kanoute
He would slot right in