Football Daily - The Slot Machine: How Liverpool hit the managerial jackpot

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

From Shankly to Paisley, and now from Klopp to Slot – what do Liverpool get so right about their manager transitions? Kelly Cates is joined by football writer and Liverpool fan Tony Evans and Dutch football journalist Marcel van der Kraan. Hear from Arne Slot himself, as well as Cody Gakpo and tactics writer Mark Carey. And catch an interview with sport psychologist Dan Abrahams, who worked with Slot at Feyenoord.04:00 Liverpool have a healthy history of changing managers 07:50 Arne Slot is ‘like a Swiss watchmaker’ 09:35 Slot on successfully replacing Klopp 16:20 Tactics writer Mark Carey joins the pod 20:55 Gakpo’s take on the transition between managers 23:00 Has Gravenberch been a key to success? 29:20 Are Liverpool too reliant on Mo Salah? 34:40 Interview with sport psychologist Dan Abrahams 46:40 What does the future look like?BBC Sounds / 5 Live commentaries next weekend: Sat 1630 FA Cup Final Crystal Palace v Man City on 5 Live Sun 1330 Women’s FA Cup Final Chelsea v Man Utd on Sports Extra 3, Sun 1415 West Ham v Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on 5 Live, Sun 1500 Brentford v Fulham in the Premier League on Sports Extra 2, Sun 1630 Arsenal v Newcastle in the Premier League on 5 Live.

BBC Sounds music radio podcast. The Football Daily podcast with Kelly Kitts. This is the slot machine, how Liverpool hit the managerial jackpot. It was too obvious we couldn't not do it. We will hear from the man himself on a slot. Liverpool forward and fellow Dutchman Cody Gacopo plus the sports psychologist who worked alongside slot at Feyenoord. We will crunch the data, look at the tactics, work out what's changed for Liverpool on the pitch and we'll discuss what slot might yet need to change going forward into next season. Joining us, football writer and Liverpool fan Tony Evans and Dutch football

journalist Marcel van der Kran, good evening to both of you. Good evening. Tony, I noticed that while you weren't necessarily in favour of Virgil van Dijk asking Liverpool fans to wear red to the game against Tottenham on the day they won the Premier League title, you have decided to go for red tonight. Oh yeah, definitely. I think we've been wearing red, haven't we, since they beat Tottenham. So what were you expecting that there would be this celebrations come the end of this season? What did you think would happen when Slott was appointed? Well, no, not at all. I mean, I expected them to challenge for fourth place. I expected them to get Champions League Slott, but to be a transition year. And frankly, internally, inside the club, they expected the same.

This has been just a remarkable and happy surprise for everyone I think. Marcel what was the belief in the in the Netherlands about what Slot could achieve? Did they think he'd be an instant success? Well there were a lot of people who thought it was too high for him to jump and people did not expect him to do well immediately and they were hoping actually he would do better than Eric Tanach at Manchester United. I remember going on the match of the day programme on a Saturday afternoon with Martin Keown

and he asked me about what I thought of Schlott and I gave him this raving review because I'd been working with him for three years and at Feyenoord watched him every day, spoke to him every other day, every week, saw him at every match, how he operated his training sessions and having followed Feyenoord for more than four decades I had never seen a manager as good as him and I said to Marta Keogh this man is absolutely brilliant he's the man for Liverpool I know the fans have never seen a manager as good as him and I said to Marta Keogh this man is absolutely brilliant he's the man for Liverpool I know the fans have never heard of him in Liverpool and they probably do not expect anything but this man is really

going to do miracles there and never thought he would go for the championship in the way but I did say, he's going to finish up higher than Eric Tenhaag, never thinking it will be 15 places higher. What's the reaction been to this Premier League title success in the Netherlands? Are people broadly supportive or is it split? How's it been? Absolutely amazing. The day when Liverpool's game was on, I think every paper had the back pages on Arna slot on his success, raving news from everybody and everybody wanted to watch Liverpool that weekend more than any Dutch game. And that said a lot because the

Dutch league, the Aridafese is also really coming to a boiling point. But Liverpool's week where they grabbed the title, well really every game has been the hottest thing in the Netherlands all year round. In the past it was always Manchester United or when Van Persie was at Arsenal, people had their favourite for those teams but now it is red all over Holland. But it's been tricky for him or it's been a difficult job because following the footsteps of an iconic manager is never easy. Liverpool and Arna slot have managed to make it look that way, winning a joint record 20th league title, the club's first in five years. Let's start by looking at the club's very healthy history of changing managers and Tony,

it feels like we haven't had a lot of conversations about the boot room of late, because it felt as though maybe that system had gone out of fashion. But it's certainly one that, in Liverpool's most successful period, was used to great effect. Oh yeah, I mean, from Bill Shankly,

brought together a group of football experts who propelled the club through two and a half decades. And it's quite funny because when Sluck came in, he was replacing a charismatic manager. And a lot of us thought back to 1974, when Bob Paisley replaced Shankly, a very similar thing. I don't think in each case, the owners and the board wanted charisma to come in. They were looking for something different. They were looking for a different sort of character. And Paisley was absolutely brilliant at it.

And then following Paisley was Joe Fagan, who was 63 when he took over, which is amazing. He only did two seasons. And then of course the great Kenny Dalglish come in and and won the double in his first year slot you know has won the league in his first year so that's it's a great achievement you know it's but one of the things that Liverpool always did was work to a template a plan that these had developed over the years and years and the interesting thing is Family Sports Group now have their own templates and

it kind of departed from it towards the end of the club era and too much power was centered on the manager so they've looked to go for a more collegiate way of doing things based on the analytics department and certainly for the first year it's exceeded every expectation if they can create anything and it's very different to me in the boot room was a bunch of you know grizzled old football men sitting there talking about the game and it was knowledge and I mean they did their own analytics thing because they kept logs and they kept books and you know how go and you know about how it was going and how they could respond to defeat sports. I think

It's a very different concept nowadays But if they can create the sense of consistency going forwards, I think it'd be really healthy for the club Yeah, do you think there are similarities? I think that's maybe where you're where you're going with this. There might be, with this more collegiate sort of view from Fenway Sports Group, that there is that sort of replication of what was the nerve center of Anfield, which might have been a bit more low tech,

but the same philosophy. Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine they'll be drinking Crete's beer in the analytics bunker. I don't know, you've not seen Arna Slot in Ibiza have you? Oh yeah I have you know but shouldn't go into Wayne Lineker's club be a sacking offence but in all seriousness yeah it's one of the things that we see in football the the massive dysfunction comes from people who don't have a clear plan and shop and change all the time and if you can have a I hate to use the word philosophy because that would have

got you kicked out the boot room. But if you have a clear vision of how you want to go forward, it makes a huge difference. And it is part of that plan that if you believe in the system, then the next step will become clear to you. And it feels as though when they went and looked, Marcel, at the successor to Jürgen Klopp, the detail that they went into was so minute that they looked at how he played, they looked at his injury record, they looked at the injury record of his players, they looked at all kinds of metrics that people just wouldn't have had access to. And that is really a very professional way, the way Liverpool looked at it.

And I've once said, it's almost like when you look at Arna slot, you're watching a Swiss watchmaker. Those people are so accurate. You give them all the little details of a brilliant watch, are so accurate. You give them all the little details of a brilliant watch and they put it in place and that's what Arnaud Slot did. And I think Liverpool never promised him a transfer kitty. I don't think he ever asked for a transfer kitty. In the past, in his years at Feyenoord where he won the league and the cup and the Cruyff Shield, the biggest amount of money he'd ever been given was 28 million and that was for nine players. The biggest amount of money spent on one player was seven million pounds in Holland. So I knew that when he went to Liverpool, I didn't think he would spend massively because the plays he was getting from Klopp from that time were

already miles better than what he had ever worked with in Holland at any club and even at Feyenoord when he won the Eredivisie. That was all, I won't say average, but very sort of okay players but not the class of Salah van Dijk and when he arrived there I thought I would be surprised if he signs anybody. In the end I think it was just Chiesa for the 10 million and even that play had been that play much but Slot really wanted his system to work. He was putting that watch together and with all the elements that was needed to make it tick literally and that's what I believed he would do never really realizing that he would blow everybody away so quick.

Let's hear then from the current Liverpool manager. Onerslopp was asked in his latest press conference about replacing Jurgen Klopp and what the club did well to successfully manage that transition. First of all what Liverpool did well and Jurgen did well is leave the team in a good place. So there was a lot of quality and about myself is not emphasized too much on the fact that you replace someone who did so well. There are so much general opinions in football. So for example, if it's a bit of trouble in the hierarchy of a club above you, so in sports directors or general managers or ownership, then it's impossible

to play good football on the pitch. That has nothing to do with Liverpool, but that's what they said, that's what people always say and I experienced that at Feyenoord where there were a lot of problems above me, but it didn't lead to us not performing on the pitch. And it's the same like this, then all of a sudden it's impossible because Arsene Wenger left and Söder X. Ferguson left to do well afterwards. That is not something that always should happen. I don't believe in these things, let's put it that way. So if you have a good squad of players and that's what we had,

just start to work with them and try to get the best out of them. And I haven't thought that much about replacing Jurgen and that it was impossible at Arsenal or United multiple years ago. Life has changed, the world has changed, so you cannot compare these situations. You can't compare situations directly and say that they are exactly the same, but you can look at certain elements of them, Tony, that might be similar. And I'm thinking back just to bring that thread through. When Bob Paisley came back in and acted as an advisor at

Liverpool and Honest Slott has talked about the fact that he's kept in contact with with Jürgen Klopp he's had conversations with him all throughout the season on and off and then again after Liverpool won the title. Yeah that surprised me a little bit I didn't expect that level of contact between them. I think it's fascinating what Slott says there, that dysfunction in the boardroom always shows itself on the pitch, and it does. And one of the things is,

I think towards the end of the Klopp era, too much power and pressure was piled on Klopp's shoulders, and he didn't enjoy it. So I think everyone's learnt a lesson from that. So Slutt's come in, they've taken a lot of things like the transfer of responsibility away from him and we'll see how that works because after such a good year as he's had, a good season as he's had, he might actually have a bigger say in what they do in the market in over the summer but they've taken some of the pressure off him and he's allowed to coach one when he really got my attention it was when he come in and most managers when they come into a new club the first thing

they say is the players aren't fit enough you know it's it's one of the great cliches in football and they you know move to a different training of the things slotted was scale it back a little bit from what the club was doing and be more targeted in this training. The players responded really well to that. And I thought, well, this is a fellow who's got a clear idea of what he's doing. And that was a really positive thing going forward. And as I say say he's just exceeded all our expectations. Yeah it has exceeded expectations but that what Tony said there and he picked up on what Honest Lothead said in that press conference about dysfunction in the boardroom showing itself on on the pitch and making the point that when Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger left Manchester

United and Arsenal respectively actually there were structural changes at the club, David Gill left at the same time as Manchester United of course, there were boardroom changes at Arsenal as well at that time Marcel, but the continuity behind the scenes at Liverpool, even though there have been changes over the last couple of seasons, there's been that same structure, that same, or maybe a return to that original structure as Tony was saying. Well, there is one advantage which Arna Slaughter had. He's never worked in England, he'd never been part of any English club and he went there with a complete blank history, he wasn't prejudiced. And there's one element which I think we must not underestimate with Arne Slott. That's his communication skills. He is probably in my eyes the best communicator

among all the managers I've seen working in the Netherlands. Johan Cruyff was brilliant, very direct. Arne is quite direct. And Arne knows how to bring people together around him, sometimes strict, sometimes with a smile. I mean, I've seen most of his press conference with a big smile, but when you get to the point where he thinks, oh, hang on, you are actually attacking the wrong part of this club or the wrong people in my team, then he stands up. But inside, in that dressing room, his communication with his captain, who is his like his right hand on the pitch, Virgil, his coaching staff and Richard Hughes, other people who are top

top level in the club. He's always been able to communicate and I've often said that 50% of a brilliant manager is his tactics and the way he thinks about football but the other 50% more than ever especially the bigger the clubs have grown compared to many years ago and the amount of staff there are in a club the other 50% is to be able to communicate with everybody and to keep everybody in your direction because in the past a coach at Liverpool, Will Shankly or Paisley had maybe one physio and one assistant on the bench, sometimes not even that and a couple of reserves. Now there is a bigger team on the bench than actually on the pitch and behind the scenes there are another 300 people working for that club and Arna Slopp is the man who has to steer that

Titanic ship. Well, it's not a Titanic ship. That's the wrong word. The Queen Mary, let's say. One that's still afloat. That was a terrible mistake. The Queen Mary guided through the channel, etc. And that's what he's doing. He has those skills and it's so important. And every club he's been at, he managed to get everybody going in that same direction and to keep that good atmosphere. And you can tell that from his press conferences, you know,

he never comes in storming it. He never slaughters anybody. It doesn't have the cynical ways of Mourinho says, oh, I just toss a few coins and that's the team. You'll never see that from him. We'll be hearing from sports psychologist, Dan Abrahams very shortly on the character of the two coaches.

But let's concentrate now on the tactics, the on the pitch stuff. Joining us now, tactics writer and data analyst for the Athletic, Mark Carey. Evening, Mark. Evening, how are you? Good, thank you. Arna Slott said the club left the team in a good place

with a lot of quality, that Klopp left a good squad behind him. But he hasn't kept things quite the same and neither have there been wholesale changes. So just talk to me about the differences that there have been. Yeah, it does feel like it's been a bit of both and that there's been a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. And as you say, at the very start of the season,

he said as much, he said that he's, I mean, the guy said it before and you showed the interview that he said that he's been left with such a fantastic squad. And I think as much as anything, they've been a little bit more patient in possession. I think that you think about the way that they build through the thirds.

I think you look at last season and the way that Trent Alexander-Arnold would tuck inside and be key to the way that they built through the thirds. That's no longer the case. I think that Virgil van Dijk's been open in saying as much that he has now got more responsibility to be the one to catalyze and to start attacks. And it's the Dutch connection from Virgil van Dijk

into Ryan Gravenberg who's been crucial in the way that Liverpool build from the defensive third into the midfield third and then progress forward. So I think that's a key one. I think the second one is that they're slightly less intense out of possession. I think that Slot has still said that they want to still be intense when the opportunity is there to press really high and make sure that they do kind of go gung-ho, but only when the opportunity arises, whereas I think under Klopp it was a bit more harem, scarum in all sort of phases of play. And I think that they just know when to step off a little bit and drop more into a, let's say a mid-block, they'll do typically a 4-2-4 or a 4-4-2 and just make sure that they're

compact when they need to be. When the opportunity arises-4-2 and just make sure that they're compact when they need to be. When the opportunity arises, they'll push forward and make sure that they're pressing really high. So I think as much as anything, it's why there's so many similarities and differences. It's not that he's necessarily changed anything compared to Jochen Klopp in as much as just adding, I think, an extra layer, an extra string to their bow that's building on the foundation that Klopp has left, which speaks to all the interviews bow that's building on the foundation that Klopp has left, which speaks to all the interviews that he's given across the season. Yeah, and the way that he's described that as well, he said that this maybe slight difference,

he said, is that after we win the ball, I like to go forward, but I sometimes like it when players try to keep the ball and not play the difficult ball. It's about playing the right ball. He said, maybe Jürgen liked the chaotic scenes in and around the penalty box. I think he said, we're trying to find the balance between trying to create chaos at certain moments and trying to keep possession a bit longer in other moments. Tony, has there had to been adaption from the crowd at Anfield to the way that Slott plays?

Are there times where maybe they're expecting more of a sense of urgency than they're seeing from Arna Sloc's iteration of Liverpool? Yeah, definitely, Kelly. One of the things that struck me about the Klopp team, I've never seen a side feed off the energy of the crowd and vice versa so much in all the time I've been going. There was a sort of loop of electricity that went between them. Now, the best club teams, the midfield wasn't really a traditional midfield. They were there to screen the defence, they were there to press, but they really, you know, ideally the diagonal ball from the full backs across the pitch would cut out the midfield.

What Slott's done is he's played through the midfield and he wants his midfielders to get on the ball, to run with the ball and to pass it forward, which everyone worked out how Klopp's best side played and was starting to be able to nullify the full backs. So this has made a huge difference tactically. And the other thing which I do love is when, you know, we all know the cliche about heavy metal football, but club teams tended to be on the top note all the time. I love that when slot teams, particularly in home games,

get up by two goals, Dieter Klee, you know, it's over an hour to go, so it's half an hour to go. Yeah, don't worry about it, let's just see the game out. And it's half an hour to go. Yeah, don't worry about it. Let's just see the game out. And that's what all the great sides in Liverpool history did. You know, the number of players who have spunked over the years and say like, we go one up or two up and that was it.

No entertainment. I love to see Liverpool not entertaining the crowd when the two nil up. And there have been points that in this season, the one man and we'll come on to the Liverpool midfield. And there have been points in this season. One man will come onto the Liverpool midfield, and I know everybody's talked about it, with Ryan Gravenburtch in particular. But another player who's really flourished under Arna slot this season is Cody Gacpau.

Here's his take on the transition between the managers. I think there was a few things that were evolved. I think first of all, obviously, the team is one year more together so you know we know each other better you know every year the team stays like almost the same it's good for the team spirit for the playing connection with everybody so that's one thing and the manager who came in obviously the manager changed something slightly like tactical and ball possession but I think against the ball stayed

almost the same as it was the season before so and then it's just up to us to build on that together and I think that's what we did and we knew already from last year that we we could challenge for the title but at the end of last season we slipped off in I think the last 10 games or eight games but so we learned also from that you know we grow as a team we grow as persons we get more experience in those in those situations and yeah and I think besides that I think we also had very good performances from from individual players who helped us at times big examples Mo who in in some games that it was a little bit stuck he came up with a goal or assist or Ali with some big saves or you know so this everything

came together very well this season and there's something we can build on for next season again to to challenge again for the for the title and to go for more trophies. Just how much does a coaching group change the dynamic? We're certainly going to be looking into how that group that Arnaz came in because it was such a long-standing group under Jurgen as well. I think every manager comes in with his own ideas of players who he wants to play. For example, Ryan, he didn't play that much last season, but this season he played almost everything, so that's maybe a change this manager thought, oh this is a good fit for

how he wants to play. And then, yeah, in this case everybody saw how it worked out and I think Ryan played an exceptional season. That was Cody Gackboe talking to Rob Schofield and at the end there, after having talked about on a slot, he was talking about Ryan Gravenberch and the key area of the pitch where, as Tony mentioned about that change and how he wanted the midfield to work, he managed to bring Ryan Graven Burch in and perform that role. How key has that been to the difference between what Jürgen Klopp wanted to do and what Arna slot wanted to do, Mark?

Yeah, I mean, it was quite clear from the start of the season or in the summer that Arna slot wanted to have a number six who could dictate the play and make sure that they could get a foot on the ball and sort of instill the more patient possession that slot wanted. Of course, we sort of know the story there behind why they didn't get Zubamendi. So it was almost born out of circumstance that Ryan Gravenberg was the one to come in and play that more number six role. He played more as a number eight in the season before in the minutes that he did get. I think that Sot had a conversation with him during preseason to ask him

whether he was up for it. And I think it's important to note as well that I believe he did play as a number six, as a bit more of a holding midfielder in his Ajax days, I think, after Frankie De Jong left quite a few years ago now. So I think it was always clear that he was capable of playing it. But given the sort of the physical quality that I think it was always clear that he was capable of playing it, but given the sort of the physical quality that he has, it's more that he's maybe prosper more as a number eight, but he's been an absolute revelation in the center of the field.

I think that as much as anything, his ability to beat the opposition press and progress forward, whether that's through his passing or his running as well, is absolutely crucial. He's so press resistant as a midfielder, which is so crucial in the modern game as well. And I think Slot's been on record in saying that he's one of the few holding midfielders who can create an overload with a dribble. And I think that tactically that's really interesting

because especially the way that the opposition press works now that in certain phases, they're gonna look to go man for man. So across the whole pitch, every player is gonna be attached to an opposition player in possession. Now, if Ryan Gravenberg can turn his man, as we've seen him do so, so well,

he then suddenly is descending upon the opposition with a player up for Liverpool. And then the spaces start to open up elsewhere and there's gaps that then happen in the opposition and that's where Liverpool can maybe find an opening to attack as well. So what would maybe be perceived as getting involved in the early stages of Liverpool's attack can be so crucial later down the line. It's a domino effect that he is really so so crucial in and as I say you maybe think of it as a bit of a happy accident, but it was clear that he has and had the qualities to perform that role for a long time. Yes, because Marcel, the conversations around Gravenberg in that role have been, well, Liverpool

didn't get who they wanted to play that position. So they're going to try and Gravenberg in there. And look, he's had a very good start to the season in that position. But let's see what happens when he comes up against tough opposition. And then it's, oh, well, he did all right in this game and he's been successful here too. Oh my god this player is a revelation. Why do you think he's adapted so well to it? I think the biggest strength of Arne Slot as a coach is putting players in their strength and I think he was convinced he could get more out of him. He'd seen him of course in every game where Gravenberg worked before in the Netherlands and he knew that he had a lot more in his locker.

Slot is in a way a genius of exploiting the gaps, the space at the opposition by putting his key players in all kinds of different little formations. It often looks the same formation but Liverpool are never the same formation. Every game he will adjust small details as you just heard Godi Gakbo say and those details make him is like a scientist in football. There's a funny story to this. Last year Arne Slot came to this football panel show funny story to this. Last year Arne Slot came to this football panel show in The Netherlands live on TV and Marco van Basten was on the other side of the table and Ruth Gullit and a few others. But Marco van Basten was incredibly interested in hearing certain things from Arne Slot, also questioning him about certain things. And it was quite funny, van Basten had just been at the FIFA headquarters for a couple of years as their technical director, probably the highest technical director's job in the world football.

And the show turned out in Marco Van Basten listening with his mouth open for one hour to Arnold Schlott. And Schlott explained all his ideas, his tactics and how he would change the midfield, how we would create an overload and Van Basten was absolutely mesmerised and said after the show that it was the best football talker he'd spoken to for many, many years. I think that's really interesting because I don't think that idea of many, many years. I think that's really interesting because I don't think that idea of Arna slot as a specialist tactician, one of the great tacticians, I don't think that necessarily comes across Marcel in terms of, certainly in terms of the stories that are told around him.

And yet I do think he is. He's always analysing the game. He's got this intense look and you maybe we think every coach has that, but you see coaches who are running up and down the line and motivating their players and the come on things and go forward and press. But Arna is always analysing what's happening on the other parts of the pitch and he's thinking, oh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to change that. He studies the opposition. In my opinion, he does that to another level above many, many other levels of other coaches.

I think it's often underestimated there. I think we will see a little bit more. The most interesting thing is going to be which kind of plays he's going to add to this team, because he's going to find it hard to improve the certain quality of his team by not really ever having bought top players and I find it really interesting because in the past he's always created things with very average players as I said before he won things with players who I didn't think were capable of finishing in the top five and then he won the league in the Eredivisie and that was only, not because

the players turned out to be really good, he put players in a strength, told them what to do and surprised the opposition in every big match which those average players were coming up to. Mind you, he seems to have handled Mohamed Salah particularly well this season and Salah was quite effusive in his praise for Arna slot. One of the points that he made when he was interviewed about him was that if you relieve me of my defensive duties, some of my defensive duties, I will deliver in terms of the offensive numbers, which I believe is an argument that's had by pretty much all forwards throughout

world football. But Mark, how reliant are they on Salah? This is one of the great individual Premier League seasons, but are the others weighing in, do you think? Yeah, I mean, just purely looking at the numbers, which is my job today. I'll just lean on them and not have too much of an opinion by saying that Cody Gatpo has scored 18 goals in all competitions this season. Lewis Day has scored 18 goals in all competitions this season. Lewis De Azar scored 17 goals in all competitions this season, which is still a healthy number to chip in with. And you think about the Liverpool teams of Alder and Diergen Klopp, that it was

mainly the front three who were the ones who were scoring the goals. It was Mane, Firmino and Salah. And the midfield, as we've spoken about earlier, was a little bit more workman-like. So I think it is still worth noting that the front line are scoring goals and it's not you know ridiculously weighted towards Salah. That being said of course it is still him that's dominating the goal scoring but I think that's okay because it's almost like having a central striker but just on the right wing just because almost he's playing more towards you know the touchline it makes you sort of think that well should this necessarily be the case but I think that he is just a central striker who's an out and out goal scorer just playing in a wide area so I think

it's okay that that is the case that you have someone who's capable of scoring those goals and the team is set up as he has said himself to allow him to be the one to have the most energy and we know that he's the most clinical finisher. And I think it does link back to Ryan Gravenburtch as well. I think that for all that I was mentioning, all of his qualities in possession. I know I remember asking Arna Slott this after the game against Bournemouth, because it was quite noticeable that Ryan Gravenburtch was pushed across to the right-hand side even more than he normally was, almost acting

as an auxiliary right-back at times. I said it seemed that that was sort of an explicit tactic from Slott and he said that essentially Mohamed Salah's good at a lot of things. He's an incredible player but his main strength isn't following the opposition fullback. So I think it's double weighted that Liverpool have actually been really strong defensively because Gravenberg has helped on that right-hand side, helped Trent Alexander-Arnold out, but it's also allowed Salah to then leave a bit of doubt in the opposition's fullback's mind to because Gravenberg has helped on that right-hand side, helped Trent Alexander-Arnold out, but it's also allowed Salah to then leave a bit of doubt in the opposition's fullback's mind

to then not allow them to push on. He then himself stays high. He's then got the energy to stay high and not exhausted by the time he reaches the box and maybe misses out on a certain chance. So I think it's all of the things stitching together across the team, which again reiterates why Slott has been so crucial and so intelligent as a tactician that he's getting the most out of Salah. It's not by chance. Yes, Salah came back in such

a great form and shape in the summer, last summer, but it's again, it's not by chance. It's by the way that the whole team is playing to maximise his strengths and get the most out of him. Tony, it's paradise syndrome, isn't it? Where there's that sense of dissatisfaction despite achieving all your goals and that sense of kind of restlessness that comes with excellence. And it feels as though there's a touch of this around Mohamed Salah. Liverpool have just won the league. Salah's just put in one of the great Premier League performances across the season, certainly in terms of numbers,

and the question we're all asking is, well, are they too reliant on him? Isn't the point of Mohamed Salah that you're reliant on him to a certain extent? Oh, definitely, definitely. But they've got to look beyond him now. They've got two years and it was a very good decision to keep Salah and Van Dijk at the club. They've got two years to work out how they replace him and they can only do that by... it's unlikely they'll do it with one individual left to do it by platoon and that's something that's lots of us will be thinking about even now looking forward but Salah has just been... he's just been an outrage, he's just a fantastic player and I still think

despite all the applaud that he gets there's an element of him that's underrated he's just been absolutely magnificent for the whole of his time in the Premier League and It's interesting that he's you know passing Thierry Henry in all the records and he's certainly at least similar status with Henry and He's certainly at least similar status with Henry and he's brilliant but there will be a reshapen of the forward line because one of the other interesting things about Slott that we've seen this year When he doesn't fancy a player, you know, we're pretty quickly and Owen Nunes. He clearly doesn't fancy

The 72 plus on the football daily, I'm Aaron Paul and I'm Joey McEnough and on Wednesday Plus on the Football Daily. I'm Aaron Paul. And I'm Joby Mackenna. And on Wednesdays on the Football Daily we bring you 72 Plus, the home of the EFL from Five Lives Sport. As we'll get stuck into the latest from the Football League and beyond. They've got so much quality there, for me, worthy winners. They've only actually lost four games all season, which is quite remarkable really.

That's 72 Plus, the EFL podcast only on the Football Daily. Listen on BBC Sounds. The Football Daily podcast with Kelly Kitts. It does take a very special manager to come into a club and win the league in their debut season. I've been speaking to Dan Abrahams, a sports psychologist who worked alongside Arna Slott at Feyenoord when they won the Eredivisie in 2023. And I asked him what it is about Slott that meant that he was capable of replacing an iconic figure such as Jurgen Klopp. I think there's so many characteristics that he possesses that stood him in good stead. His open-mindedness, even his closed-mindedness, I mean he doesn't just take anything on board, he is open-minded but he knows what he likes and he's got his

way of doing things. So he's mindful of going about it in the way that he did it at Fiannau, which was very, very successful. So he had a really strong template. Look, there's so many characteristics about him that I think smacks of success. So I'm unsurprised that he's taken over from Klopp and done really, really well. And what he's also told us is that he's been in contact with Jurgen Klopp on and off throughout the season and then again after winning the title. Does that ring true to you? Does that sound like the kind of person that he is,

that he would want to keep that succession path very smooth? There's a humbleness to him in that respect. It doesn't surprise me that he just came into Liverpool and did it his own way. I think key to being a great leader, a great manager, a great head coach is to look at the organization that you've come into and say, well, what's working? What's successful? Why is this successful? And I suppose to the outside world, everybody would have their opinion about what made Jürgen Klopp great and what he did successfully at Liverpool. But I'm sure Arnaud, he's a details person and he would have wanted to get into the weeds. And so he obviously went to Klopp and said, what is working? What did work? What can I keep on doing here? That doesn't go against the grain in terms of how I would go about

it, but what can I keep going? What's strong? What's successful? And so that leads to a really positive succession, doesn't it, when you do that. So I think that's a part of how he's hit the ground running. And in terms of the differences, certainly from the outside looking at both characters, it feels like Slott is a less, I want to say intense manager than Jürgen Klopp. He comes across as being relatively laid back, but of course that can't always be the case for a manager, particularly a successful one. They have to have different sides to them. He's the details person.

He works very hard. He is intense. He's got a pretty chilled out, a classical sort of Dutch chilled outside to him. And you do see when you get the opportunity, when you're blessed with the opportunity to work with him, you see all sides. He's got a lot of characteristics that come to the fore, whether it's the detail, the intensity, that comes to the fore often. But you do see the lighter side of him, the man management side, the capacity and ability to get on with people, which is so, so important

in coaching. I think he's got so many parts of the jigsaw puzzle filled in when it comes to coaching. And that's a big part of why he's hit the ground running there. When you talk about his man management technique, how would you describe that? What's his kind of method of dealing with the players? Individual development, very much that. It has a real passion for individually developing players, more so than I've ever experienced from anybody. I think the players themselves have reported being surprised from the beginning how much time he and his coaching staff would take to sit down with players and break their games down and strive to improve their games. And that's a much underestimated

and strive to improve their games. And that's a much underestimated thing in coaching behind the scenes that's so, so important. I mean, players obviously care about their games, but if a coach shows that they care, then that makes a big, big difference. I think it can be somewhat of a cliche to say, oh, he puts his arm around players and his office door is always open.

Yeah, those things exist. But what he cares passionately about is improving individuals. And when players get a whiff of that, even if they're not starting, even if they're not a regular fixture in the team, that still keeps them motivated because look, they're improving, they're developing, they're seeing the coaching staff around them who care about their game and so that makes a big big difference to the perception the players have of Anna and his coaching staff. How did he like his training sessions to be seen by the players? How did he like them to to work in terms of as you said individual improvements but also the group dynamic? two eyes, intense and involved would be the two words that come to mind.

I think the intensity, that's something you'll see from just about every Premier League team these days, you know, that's too a penny now. But the involvement, not necessarily so much, and that was my experience of him at Fire Nord was that as a sports psychologist, we know that motivation is heavily influenced by player involvement. You want those players to be participants and not just recipients. And that's something that he was extraordinarily open-minded to having conversations with me about how do I help my players be involved here. And that's something that he developed throughout my stay at Feyenoord was making sure that there was involvement from players, whether that could be as basic

as huddles or just insistence of players being vocal and helping each other. He wanted his players involved and that's not always the case with every single head coach. So does he like to have leadership groups and a sort of structure, a hierarchical structure maybe? I certainly can't speak for what he's done at Liverpool, but back at final, that's very much how we worked was very much making sure, I think we built very much on the philosophy of your most powerful psychologists are your players and if you can help them be able to influence another I word, be able to influence each other, that's important. So we built very much the language,

high performance mindset is what we call it, HPM abbreviated. And we wanted players to talk a lot about those, to follow each other and to influence each other on those. If he's taken that into Liverpool, with the quality of players he's got there, which perhaps he has, he's been successful so far. So I think that would have been a very powerful thing for him to have done. It wouldn't surprise me if he has done that. Tell me more about that high performance mindset and what that, well, without giving away too much of your secret methods. Tell

me what that high performance mindset looks like on a day to day basis. I'm not sure they're so secret, but look, high performance mindset, I suppose there's several buzz terms related to that. I mean, very much at Fire Nord, we broke that down into three action-based words, dominant, relentless, and brave, dominant, relentless, and brave. And the wonderful thing, Kelly, about action-based words is you can break those down into so many mini behaviors that you see on and off the picture if you think about dominant, relentless, and brave. And so if all of the staff, we call it a shared mental model, a model of how we wanted our world to be. So we wanted to see dominant,

we wanted to see relentless, we wanted to see brave. And you could think of that in possession, out of possession, in the gym, in the medical department, and so on and so forth. So it's very much this term high performance mindset. It was very much these key behaviors, these action words of dominant reliance and brave and trying to spill those out into every activity in every session every day and then onto the game day pitch, absolutely crucial. And the players themselves had their own individual mental frameworks that drove their own individual high performance mindset. So it was very much a team thing and an individual thing. And of 20 years working as a sports psychologist,

I've worked at half a dozen Premier League clubs. So I have reasonable experience in this area. I felt that my two years at Fire North under Arnaud, that was the most open that any coaching staff, head coach and club has been when it comes to high performance mindset. That's really interesting that they're kind of open to every new way that they can in order to get those gains. I mean marginal gains is one of those phrases we hear a lot now around all kinds

of sport actually. But there was a story about Slott and his final staff sending a group of players, I think it was the defenders, off to a kickboxing lesson to try and bring a bit more aggression into their game. So I'm just interested in that way of him looking at different versions of training and different methods to try and bring out key aspects of their game. Well, that's it, Kelly. And just briefly going back to marginal gains, again, I think a great characteristic of Ar of Ana, which is indicative of all high performance, great coaches who are successful is that they are open-minded, but they also balance that with a sense of closed mindedness, you know, they're not just going to take on board anything. And I think marginal gains over the years has built this traction of, we're

just going to do absolutely anything and everything. And really that's not the case. So there's a wonderful balance there, but in balance there. But in terms of the kickboxing, again, what we would say in psychology is you want players to be able to assert themselves in any given situation. There will be tough moments. There will be mistakes. Players are human beings who experience thoughts, emotions, feelings, and can't fully control them all the time, but they can take control of their response to them. When you engage in physical activities like kickboxing, for example, there's this kind of physical exertion that you experience that helps you feel a little bit more mentally

tough. And to start as well as he has done and then to pick up from that brings with it its own different challenges. To win the Premier League title at the first attempt and then to move on to next season with all the changes that come with that. It's a different mindset potentially from going in and striving to win the Premier League title. Usually so. It's that second season. It's like a musician's second album, isn't it? It's a challenge in and

of itself in part because of expectations. I mean, this word expectation in high performance sport is absolutely brutal. The higher the expectation, the greater the anxiety an individual, a team, an organization can experience. And for Arna, his staff and everybody at Liverpool, what if you lose the first game? What if you lose the first couple of games and suddenly there's momentum against? It's very much about striving to keep momentum forward. And so I wouldn't be surprised if in pre-season he's very much addressing that. Managing expectation around performance but demanding expectation around process. I think that's

the keen balance to have. What you find is where things go wrong in a second season is that there tends to be toughness on performance and tolerance on mindset or process. I would reverse that and I think Arna would do this. To be tolerant on performance but really tough on process, tough on mindset, we're going to keep doing the same great things and get even better at what we're doing. That doesn't guarantee performance, it doesn't guarantee outcome, it gives them a better chance and I think Arna, he's reasonable. He knows that that is all that they can accomplish. The one thing to say is he's got good people behind him. There's good structures top down

at Liverpool that makes you feel that they're not going to panic, they're not going to worry, they've got good support structures behind that team no matter who is playing for them, irrespective of the start that they have. That was sports psychologist Dan Abrams who worked with Liverpool manager Arna Slott when he was at Fire Nord. So let's talk now about the future for Liverpool. Football writer and Liverpool fan Tony Evans is with us as is Dutch football journalist Marcel van der Kran and tactics and data analyst Mark Carey. Marcel, the first Dutchman ever to win the Premier League title as a manager, the first Dutch captain ever to win the Premier League title. Could there be a follow-up? Could there be a part two?

I think there will be. If not this year, it will be in the next year after because Arna slot, as we just heard as well from Dan, he will not change anything in his coaching style. He just absolutely loves to play the entertaining attacking style and even if there would be at one point a crisis at Liverpool with some bad results, a series of defeats which nobody maybe sees coming, he will never change anything. And when we just mentioned the kickboxing, that was quite hilarious. I thought he was going to need that when he met Jose Mourinho for the second time in Rome. I was there on a European Cup night and he'd really upset Mourinho by telling him that he, well he told the Italian press that when they asked him how many times have you studied

Mourinho's team here in Italy and he says well he says I tend not to look at Mourinho's team here in Italy and he says, well, he says, I tend not to look at Mourinho's team because I get nothing out of it. I'd rather watch Pep Guardiola's team serve because that is the style I follow. That is the way I want to play football. And obviously Mourinho had picked that up and after the match, which only went to extra time and only by a minute or so Mourinho managed to to go through and avoid a knockout Mourinho stormed in the dressing room towards Slot and and a real go at him shouting swearing and go watch a guardiola if you like you'll never win anything and Slot wasn't even you know it wasn't bothered he just laughed at him and I could see him thinking,

well, you can shout what you want, and maybe yeah, okay, fair enough, you want some trophies, but I play football the way I want, and my next club will play exactly the same as I'm playing here. And they're gonna want to continue playing that way throughout next season. What are the challenges ahead, Mark?

Is it more about managing the transition for players like Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk, who've extended their contract and kind of managing them through the later stages of their career? Is it about settling in new players and are there positions you think that need to be strengthened? Yeah, I think it's probably clear, you know, despite what we were saying about the forward line being able to chip in with goals and the distribution of those goals, I still think that if there are to be outgoings across any of the forward line for Liverpool, I think bringing in an attacker would be a sensible move. I think we obviously know the Trent Alexander-Arnold situation. We can come on to whether or not Conor Bradley can fill his boots

in that regard. I would say a centre-back is probably a versatile centre-back who could maybe play at full-back as well is probably high on the list as well. And again, thinking tactically in terms of how Liverpool progress up the field, I started by saying that they can build in a bit more of a patient way through the thirds, but if teams do get tight to them, they can play long very quickly. And Trent Alexander-Arnold often is that player to maybe play it over the opposition press for Mohamed Salah to to run onto. So if you take him out of the side, if he's thinking ahead to next season, you think, okay, how can Liverpool maybe have the,

you know, the versatility to still be able to play direct when they need to, if it's not going to be through Trent Alexander-Arnold, who will it be? So I think that's something to think about as well, to be to think if it's maybe someone already in the squad or someone who maybe needs to come in how can they have that ball progression and that directness to be able to do a little bit of both when when they're building through the thirds. Yeah and if anybody thought that maybe Arna slot was looking for a more defensive right back, Jeremy Frimpong is the player who's being linked with Liverpool at the moment is arguably more attacking right back than Trent Alexander and often played as a wingback as well.

Tony, just final thoughts on Liverpool as they head into the second season under Arna Slott and head towards that difficult second album. Yeah, I'm not so sure that it'll be that difficult in the sense of he's got a good squad, they're only losing Trent Alexander-Arnold who they would have kept. I think they'll have a budget of around even if there's no outgoings, £150 million. So I can imagine they could, if they wanted to, spend £200 million to bolster the team. I think they will buy at least two defenders, they'll buy another midfield player, probably a young midfield player, they'll buy a forward and but they'll keep the basic structure. Yes as Mark says the big

void with Trent Alexander-Arnold will be his passion rather than his defending but I think they'll look to rectify that in a different manner and I think they're in pole position because you know I've never been a fan of Arsenal all season. I think City have got a fair way to come back and I think Liverpool have stolen a march on them with Arna slot and I think the expectations will be very high but I think they'll be looking to retain that title. Tony Evans, Marcel van der Kran, Mark Carey,

thank you so much for joining us this evening. Lovely to talk to all of you. Really appreciate your time as we talked about Arna slot and the transition that Liverpool made from Jürgen Klopp to title winners in Arna slot's first season. That's it for this episode of The Football Daily. The next one will be 72 Plus, the EFL podcast with Aaron Paul and Jobi Makhnoff

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