Football Daily - In Focus with Arne Slot and Gary Lineker

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Gary Lineker visits Liverpool's training ground Melwood to speak with manager Arne Slot. The Liverpool manager talks about his success at the club so far since taking charge from Jurgen Klopp in the summer. He praises the former Liverpool boss for how he left the club. Slot also discusses the difficulty of being away from his family in the Netherlands and the similarities between his former club Feyenoord and Liverpool.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to another special Football Daily with myself, Gary Lineker. And this time I'm in Liverpool catching up with manager Arne Slott. Arne, it's lovely to meet you in your splendid office and amazing training ground. I've been given a little tour around. It's a to meet you in your splendid office, an amazing training ground. I've been given a little tour around. It's a special place. Yeah, it is.

Facilities are great, as you expect if you join a club like Liverpool, but facilities are the best you can ask for. But that's only part of why you do well of course. The people that work in this building are also very special. So yeah, if you then have a good program then including good players you can do special things. You've made it all look very easy. Since you've come in, one defeat or you could say two with Spurs

but that's a first leg so that's not necessarily a defeat. Incredible, incredible start. Yeah, of course we're happy with that because when you start you don't think only about results, you first of all think about okay, can we go on with the playing style that was already there and maybe add a few things but you don't think about the amount of games you play and the amount of wins you want to have. But if we look back at the first half of the season now, of course we are very happy with the results we've got. Given the way that you've started, which is incredible,

remarkably consistent and very dominant, is that also a sign that the club was left in good health? Yeah, definitely. I've said this many times. So that is partly because of the quality of the players and that is for a main part of course, Jürgen's responsibility that has been. But you were just mentioning about the training ground over here, the culture inside the training ground and the people. So Jürgen left with a few others, very good people. But fortunately enough for me, a few very good people stayed behind as well. So the combination of these things, but mainly, of course, you can have a fantastic training ground

and you can have so many good people. But if the quality of the players is not there, it's so hard to win games. And yeah, you could see last season already the amount of games they won, the second half of the season they dropped a bit but you could already see that this is a good team and this is what they're showing this season again as well.

Is it not slightly intimidating coming to Liverpool? I ask this question because I joined my research and checking out you've never been outside Netherlands. No. With your playing career and your managerial career. So it's not just a step towards a giant of a football club,

but it's also a different country where you've never had that experience before. No. And that is the biggest adjustment I had to make. But then I mostly talk about private life because you like this training ground a lot i like it a lot as well but it comes quite close to the one we had at fine art and in the end my job is especially over here so in this office talking to my staff staff members but mainly and that is everywhere the same around the world that training pitch over there including the meeting room that is where you try to bring your ideas across so that doesn't change that much if you go from one country to another.

The good thing was that I did my meetings at Feyenoord always in English as well. I was going to ask you that. It's almost become an international football language. Yeah, especially if you are a bit higher. So if you go to a lower league table team in Holland, you might have maybe all Dutch players, but the higher you come the more different nationalities there are so that definitely helped but i think the biggest

adjustment was living abroad uh in for when it comes to private life because in football if you have this training ground or you put it somewhere else you have the pitch you have your meeting rooms and players are you always wonder if you go go from final to Liverpool if that changes a lot in terms of characters or personalities or, but my experience in general in football is the bigger the players are, so the more known they are, the less ego they have. So it's mostly the players underneath the top that try to maybe have a bit of a different ego or they think they are just a bit better than they maybe are but yeah I've been lucky enough that the culture of this team I think you can set that in a perfect way is be in time work

really hard every single day and try to become a better player every single day and that is what I noticed from the first day I came in. Talking about the first day you came in, I mean, I always think with a new coach when he comes into any football club, it's that first day, the impact that you made. You must have given that some thought about how to present yourself. You're a human being. Yeah. No, but apart from that, I think that's one of the main things you have to think about. So it's not only the first day,

it's also the second day. And even today, I have to think about how do I come in after so many good results and now playing Ipswich. So every single day you think about what tone you have in your meeting. Yeah, you use here as well. Coming back to the first day,

what was, of course, completely different than what everybody is thinking about is that it took me i think it was one and a half week before we started the season when 12 to 13 players for the first day came in and those were the ones that are mainly playing now of course because there was a was there a world cup or yours no there was a euro euro and a and a Copa America at the same time. So the first few weeks, there were a few players that probably start now and a few players that are in the squad, but it was mainly players from the youth academy. Probably helped you a little bit in a way, just to ingratiate yourself.

Yeah, maybe it did, because like I just said, the main difference was trying to adjust in private life. And the moment all these players came back, I already felt completely comfortable over here, because even when I went in Holland to a different club, the first few days, it's about a lot of new faces, a lot of new names. Where's the bathroom? Where's the dressing room? So these things I was adjusted to already a lot when Virgil and all these others came back to the training ground. The big disadvantage was of course you prefer to start and have a normal pre-season of five or six weeks with your team. That's what we didn't have.

How complicated is that for a coach to deal with? Because it's almost every summer now, isn't it? Even this summer coming there's this World Club Championship, you're going to get players that are coming back late. It must be slightly frustrating for a club coach. Definitely, because you hear a lot when managers go in during the season, some of them say I don't want this because I want to have a proper pre-season, some of them if they step in during the season complain a lot about how difficult it is to get their bodies across because there's hardly any training time. So in an ideal world, you make this step in the upcoming year because

this season we will have a normal pre-season because there are no tournaments, except for the one you just mentioned, but we're not involved in this. So, but if I look back at it, I think it helped that I could just get my ideas across to the players that were at that moment there. I think, I'm not sure, but you have to ask them, they were quite positive towards the one that were still at the Euros or at the Copa America. And the moment the other ones came back,

you could immediately see that these players, that's the good thing of having good players. So maybe a few layers beneath that, they need more time for them to understand what you want. But good players pick this up faster. And then probably the reason why I'm sitting here is that the club made a study or was really aware of the fact that they wanted to have a similar playing style to the one Jürgen had.

So I didn't have to change that much or hardly anything at all. You have tweaked a little bit. A little bit, yeah, but this is normal. Normally you would say that's also because you have different players. That's not true because we only brought one new player in and I think there are left two or three players, but they didn't play that much. So it's normal that you tweak a few things maybe

because for the simple reason we didn't win the league last season. So maybe if we would have won it, then you would have done exactly the same, which is never smart. You always have to... I think when Jurgen was here, he would have implemented a few different things as well. Because this is the way football works.

You cannot do the same every single year. You can have a certain playing style, but you constantly adjust the details. How have you settled into life here outside of football? Because I don't think your family are with you. No. So is that hard? That is hard, yeah.

The good thing is that it's only an hour flight, so they are here quite a lot. But children do go to school at the moment and they are in their exams, so they can skip a lot. But they've been here quite a lot, especially first half of the season. We've had a lot of international breaks.

So then after a month, it was always seven to ten days that i go back to that go back to them or go on a holiday but equity i could see them again if they were done with me once in between that is still acceptable the most difficult period is for me now so after november till march there's no no break in england at all so that means that means it's a bit harder, you don't see them as much as you want to. How do you keep yourself occupied under those circumstances or does the job do that alone? Now that for most parts of course, but we play quite a lot of padel, is that the way you say it?

We say padel but it is padel because it came originally from Mexico, I think. You should know, and Spain is very popular. Very, very popular in Spain. I've never played. No? No. Till now? Never once, no, because it's only become a thing here for the last few years.

Okay. And my age is your age, but the number's the other way around. Okay, that's a bit of a joke. Oh, and my fingers are quite arthritic. But anyway, I'll give it a go. So you can't play padel all the time? No, you can't, of course not. But we play this two or three times with the staff, so a week. And then, yeah, if you simply look at if I can go through my schedule now, we play Saturday, Wednesday we play in Eindhoven in Holland, we leave Tuesday, so it just keeps

on going, keeps on going and with the amount of games we have and one of the biggest differences between working in Holland and working in England is the amount of travel time we need, especially from where we are now, because we, because most of the teams come from London, so it's nine out of ten times also leaving the day before. So even if the family would be here, I would probably see this office a lot more than... Is that the excuse you give to the family? Well, I'd be in the office anyway.

Nah. They were also used to the fact when I was at Fyno that was a one and a half hour travel as well. Even when I was then at home, because then you go home immediately after training or a bit after training, then when you're at home you still have to do your meetings. Now this gives me a lot of time to prepare and do my work without being distracted by wanting to see my son play on Saturday morning or seeing my daughter playing tennis. Maybe I'm even a better coach now without all these distractions than I was when I was in Holland.

When you were in Holland, you were a midfield player, right? How would you describe you as a footballer yeah it's a bit hard to be in this office in Liverpool with all these players talking about my own playing career I always make the joke that I say I wasn't that fast some people called me slow and and that's what I think if I was closer to slow than to not fast. But I was a midfielder indeed. Quick up here? You need to be because the other joke I mostly make to people is that normally if you are slow, you're good in keep on running.

But I wasn't good in keeping on running. Neither. And I wasn't fast. So then there should be something to keep your head up above the water in the Eredivisie. So I was indeed, I had a good knowledge of the game and I knew that I needed my teammates to look a bit good, so I was already quite young when I said, okay, when I receive the ball, if you do this, then I can do that. Did you think, like a coach from earlier did you always

think I want to be a coach eventually or not? Of course if you start playing at the age of six seven or eight you don't think about it at all but the moment you start yeah professional career I don't I don't think it took me long before I noticed okay this is nice and I'm going to enjoy this for as long as I can, but I definitely want to become a manager or a coach. And that was already quite young and the last contracts I signed were also with the intention of making it a career as soon as I could. So I signed the contract, but if I stop or quit here, I want to be an assistant manager

or I want to do something as a manager. And yeah, I don't think anyone that played with me is surprised that I've become a manager yeah apparently you're pretty good at passing nice few through balls I'm trying to build you up here like I said it's always difficult to say these things in a surrounding like this and sitting across to someone who's played at a much higher level. But if I have to tell a quality that I thought I did have was the right timing, the right speed, the right direction. And in every other sport, if there's a ball involved, I'm quite okay.

Without the ball, it's horrific. So that's probably not being fast and not able to run a lot. Why do you think it is that not all of them, but a lot of the coaches in the modern game and probably always a midfield player, you look at the really good ones at the moment around the world. Obviously, there's Xabi Alonso and there's Arteta and there's Ari.

There's so many examples of that. What do you think that is? I think you're more cerebral than perhaps. First thing I can come up with is that you're in the middle so you need to cooperate with the defenders and you need to cooperate with the attackers and you are part

in every part of the game. If the ball is up front defenders, back in the days at least, they were resting. Now there's a rest defence to take into account. But maybe that could be a reason that midfielders are in the middle of the pitch having to check their surroundings, knowing what happens on the pitch even more than when you are a striker or you are a centre-back. Although the modern game, it's not so easy anymore to play as a centre-back or as a full-back. So back in the days when I was playing, we always said, ah, you're a full-back, you cannot talk about football.

But in modern days, you need to do so many things tactically as well if you're a full-back or a centre-back. Maybe in the future it's not only the midfielders that are doing this job but also different positions. Those positions have changed haven't they? In what way? For what I just said, back in the days if you were a full-back you were just asked if you would just get the ball back and play it as soon as you can to someone who's better with the ball than you. But now, because I think the game was much more open, definitely when I played, but even recent years.

But the last few years, there's so much knowledge in football because everybody can check YouTube or whatever and they can find ideas about football. So that makes it now that in my opinion there's not so much space in the middle anymore so the game is a bit more down the sides

which means that fullbacks and wingers get different tasks as well but back in the days it was it was yeah longer ago

definitely the game was quite slow but even when I still played it was much more open than it is now. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds. The Commentator's View on the Football Daily. I'm Alistair Bruce Ball.

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Listen on BBC Sounds. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds. You obviously developed your skills in the Dutch league, in the Eredivisie. And you ended up... Is it Feyenoord or Feyenoord?

I've always wanted to... You're the perfect person to ask. I say Feyenoord. You say Feyenoord. Feyenoord. I'll sit there and it's Feyenoord. Feyenoord, Feyenoord, yeah. Yeah. yeah it's a lot of people say defend or not say fine how was your time there brilliant yeah I couldn't have asked it incredibly

well yeah we had a great time there I had a great time there but we because I took some of the people that work with me over there as well could have asked for more players were great I wanted to work every day really hard. We were successful, fans were so positive. It was a joy to work over there. So everybody in England talks to you about the atmosphere at Anfield. If you go to Holland, everybody will talk to you about the atmosphere at the Kuyper, which is the stadium of Feyenoord. So...

Do you see similarities? Yeah, a lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah, a hardworking class, is that the way you say it over here? People that support the club, that have worked in the Ducks, so at finals the same as here in Liverpool. Not the club that, how should I say this, that is, if you try, Holland in Ajax has the most league titles, they're known for their style of play as well.

So finally there's always a bit the underdog fighting against Ajax or PSV. And I think Liverpool, not always in the history of this club of course, but for especially the last 20 years they've been, when it comes to to the Premier League not the ones that won it the most. So yeah, there are a lot of similarities between these clubs definitely. I mean you won the league and you went very close to winning a European title. I've got some good news for you that Roma are not in the Champions League. They saw you off three years didn't they? Yeah, you say Roma, I feel more that it's Jose Mourinho who was part of the problem. He's known for, especially if you play him again in one leg or in two legs, it's so difficult

to beat him because he always finds ways of winning these games and that's what I've experienced as well. There's been a lot made about it, but in the end it's just difficult to beat him, especially when he's at Raios Roma, which they have quite good players compared to the ones we maybe had at final, especially in the Conference League final. But beating him in the final is only done by one, I think. And that was last season in the Europa League. He had a tantrum after that. He's a different kind of style of coach than you are.

But can you learn of people like Mourinho? Yeah, definitely. You learn every single day in this job. But if you play against him, it's his management, it's what he tries to influence from the sideline, not only him, also his staff. You don't only play against his tactics, there's so much involved and you have to make sure that you're not distracted by that. He will take every single thing he can take to win the game and that is something... And that can be off the field. It can also be off the field

not only let that be clear because otherwise we come into it. So you have to prepare with him tactically really well because he's always someone who can prepare his teams really well for a season, but definitely also for a single game. But yeah, during the game, there are a lot of things happening as well and he always finds ways of getting his players the best out of them in these special moments. And unfortunately, I'm not there, so I can't see what he does, but I can definitely feel it that in these moments he brings just this five to ten percent extra out of his players so then you're always interested in hearing from the players you've worked with what he does so he might think because there's been a

lot of said about it that I'm only are influenced by by some other manager but I definitely interested in his in the way he works as well. How much do you think about the game? A lot. Yeah, a lot. All the time? Can you switch off? You talked about padel and stuff. Yeah, but now switching off is watching football. Yesterday I watched a documentary of Spain, four in a row.

And sometimes I do watch some Netflix series. One of my assistants just told me that The Night Agent, the second season, is out. So the first one I liked a lot. Oh, right, good. So I do sometimes. The thing is, I've learned to be more efficient than five, six, seven or eight years ago. So then it was game after game after game. And I still watch a lot of games when we play Ipswich tomorrow.

But I can do a game in 25 minutes to half an hour so I know what I'm looking for did you watch a lot of English football before you came here yeah you did yeah yeah yeah match of the day maybe because I know a lot of Dutch people have sneaky feeds yeah no no yeah it's not that is I think every Dutch person from my age would tell you that because I's why I say, because if I go to either the Netherlands or Belgium, I always get recognized for Match of the Day. It doesn't happen anywhere else. But I think you're just so close to us that you probably get the beat.

I think you will be recognized by your playing career as well, but then from maybe a bit older people. But the thing is, probably you all know but in holland it's at this moment one hour earlier am i right no ahead ahead we are one hour so when all the highlights of the other division were done then match of the day always started yeah so um that means that in holland almost everyone especially the ones that are interested in football, watch the match of the day. So I've seen a lot, a lot, a lot of match of the day. And when you're working in the Eredivisie, Dan, we always play on Saturday in the evening. So during the day on Saturday everybody is watching live football of the Premier League.

Did you watch a lot of Liverpool games after you got the job, before you came here? Did you then go back into the archives? Yeah, I did. I also watched a lot of Liverpool, which was for me their best period. So when they won the league in and around those seasons, they were working incredibly hard. And I've showed many clips of the teams I've worked with about their intensity, their work rate, combined with some other teams around Europe, but Liverpool was definitely one of them. And when I took the job, I've asked the analyst to send me

not only a lot of games, but also a lot of training sessions, just to understand, to be as best prepared possible on my first day or the days after, how do they train, what is their culture, what have they done in the past? For me to understand in the best possible way where they were. So I spoke to Jürgen, I spoke to other staff members and watched quite a lot of things to be in the best possible way prepared to see, okay, where can I win a few things?

Where should I keep the same? As the early success, I know you've no titles yet, but you're going very well, I think you'd admit that. Has it surprised you a little bit, how, I'm not going to say easy it's been, but how well it's worked? Yeah. Like I said in the beginning,

you don't think that much about results, but of course, because I was so many games because I knew how things went the second half of the season was not as good as the first half of the season and mostly in football is a good indicator to see how the second half of the season was compared to the next season you see there's a Chelsea for example as well so their former manager had a great second half of the season and they started off this season really well again as well so um yeah because the second half of the season was a bit i was like okay what can i expect and um and yeah even i couldn't expect us to play this well and yeah the results you don't think

about after 20 games i won't have that many points but I wasn't expecting us to be top of the league with the margin we have and the Champions League as well yeah but that is a different format

but it's fun but it's nice it's always nice to be up there but nobody would have expected nobody and I'm the last

person who would have expected City to have such a bad run of form for a while now I think they're almost back to where they were. That helps. No, the last game against Paris Saint-Germain. But Paris Saint-Germain is… They had great energy, a very different side

than we'd seen at PSG before. With all due respect to the players of Feyenoord, what's the difference in the level here? And how is it different coaching players that, you know, a lot of them are world-class players? What's the difference? A lot of them are world-class players. Let's have it clear that the ones that I work with at Feyenoord, some of them played in the national team together with Virgil van Dijk and with Ryan Gravenberg.

Even there was a period of time where players from Feyenoord were above Ryan Gravenbergch, even there was a period of time where players from Feyenoord were above Ryan Gravenberch and the Dutch national team. So let's not say that Feyenoord is this, and Liverpool is this, but that's what you said from the start. What I think the difference is, are some of these players, so the overall quality is of course more,

and if I compare the best ones here to the best ones here to the best ones at Feyenoord these ones are just a bit more agile faster quicker in turning stronger more powerful so they are the best athletes in the world playing this at the highest level and that's what you can see here as well and if I see the main difference in if I look at the training sessions is finishing. So if I look at the finishing of these players so it's the power of their shots, how precise they are, that is another

level compared to final. Who surprised you? Which players have you come in and gone, goodness me, he's even better than I thought? Yeah, I think a few. Is that a bit unfair to ask to pick

someone out? I think I would pick a few and then probably I forget a few as well but everybody here in England would tell you

that Virgil van Dijk is the best defender in the world. In Holland he got a bit more criticism than he gets over here in England. I was in a very positive way even surprised how good he was on the ball, so how he could play balls through the lines. From the first day I worked with him I was like wow this is definitely another level that I'm used to.

But people in England were used to this. And then I think the one that probably made the step from here to here, which even I didn't expect, is of course Ryan Gravenberg. All the other ones were at this level and they're still at this level. How do we say his name again? I say Ryan Gravenberg. I can get nowhere near that one. I think Gravenberg should do it. Gravenberg should do'm going to get nowhere near that one. I think Gravenberg should do it. Gravenberg should do it.

Yeah, we all know. I think I'd do on that one. You get asked in every interview you do now about the three players out of contract, so I'm not going to ask that in the sense that I'm going to ask you a different kind of question. Does it get on your nerves

when people keep asking you about that? No, not as much, because after half a year I know what to answer so it's sometimes more difficult to get a new question. I'm trying to ask it in a different way so I get a different answer you see but I'm not. No, no, till now you don't. So this is something, from the start you know you're going to get these questions so you know what answers you want to give. And, yeah, it's almost every time the same answer. So it's…

Is there a bit of banter, though, amongst… I mean, Mo Salah's cheeky, right? He's quite fun. I would imagine he's got a bit of banter in him. Bantery means? Banter's a bit of fun. Chat, you know, cheeky chat. Yeah, but all of them are like this.

So apart from them being very good football players, they're very good human beings. And when you came in here in the training ground, you see the coffee bar over here. They do have a lot of fun. So the players have a lot of fun together as well. This is one thing I noticed also in the documentary of Spain, that these players had a lot of fun as well.

And I think it's part of success. We all know in football, the more you win, the more fun there is. That leads me nicely to the final question, really. What's the target this season and beyond? The target is to be with Liverpool where we think these clubs should be and we should always be competing for a league title, we should always be competing for the Champions League and for the other

English trophy there are to compete for and that has been for so many years Liverpool and I'm hoping as long as I'm here. I will be able to keep the club at that level Or above which is not possible. We can't go above the level The problem is of course you've set your standards so high, the only way is to... Yeah, but this club has set the standards high. But the good thing is that sometimes people could think,

oh, you have to be able to get to those standards, but this club also has fantastic players, and we just had a fantastic training ground and all these other things. So it's maybe harder if you go to a club where everybody expects you to win, win, win, win, win, and you look at the group of players and you feel like this is going to be difficult. But that's definitely not the situation over here. And I know people sometimes question this because they haven't seen us doing a lot in the transfer market in the summer, until now in the winter as well.

There's a reason for that because we're heavy with the squad. But I do know on the background we are definitely working on strengthening the squad in the summer. So that would mean, in my opinion, that we will, for the upcoming years, if the players keep working this hard, but that's my job to keep letting them do that, that we will be able to challenge for every trophy we are playing for. Well, thank you very much. It's been fascinating and good luck for the rest of this season and beyond. Thank you.

Nice to meet you. So that's it for this special episode of the Football Daily. You can also catch our chat on the BBC iPlayer and on YouTube as well.