The Liverpool squad should be very happy with the upcoming appointment

On Friday evening, messages poured in from, among others, Paul Joyce in The Times and several other English newspapers that Feyenoord boss Arne Slot was well on his way to Liverpool. Since then, we haven’t heard much news.

It is true that information has come from inside Liverpool from Daily Mail journalist Lewis Steele. He writes that the Liverpool squad is very happy to have Slot as the new manager at Anfield.

“A couple of sources close to the dressing room say that the Liverpool team is very happy with the upcoming appointment, although the focus remains on ending the Jürgen Klopp era in the best possible way. Virgil van Dijk will probably make a few comments about this after Saturday’s game», he wrote on Twitter/X.

We’ve covered this information before, but since so much came out on Friday night, it’s okay to go over the smaller news surrounding the potential Arne Slot transfer.

A first choice

Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso was the obvious candidate when Jürgen Klopp broke the news that he wanted to step down. A couple of months later, the Spaniard confirmed that he would stay in the Bundesliga next year as well.

Then attention turned to Sporting boss Ruben Amorim, who is about to take the Portuguese club to their second league title in three years. Last week he chose to make the trip to West Ham, a choice that gained momentum in the negotiations with Slot.

On Friday evening, Melissa Reddy broke the news that the Feyenoord boss was never a second choice in the battle for Jürgen Klopp’s managerial chair.

“The club had already considered Slot as the best fit before this time (the meeting with West Ham). He was also seen as a clearly better choice in terms of communication and the big picture of the club. His character also established him as a top choice», she wrote for Sky Sports.

Assistant and performance manager

On Friday evening, The Athletic also brought exclusive news about Slot’s imminent transfer. The 45-year-old brings two coaches from Feyenoord, assistant Sipke Hulshoff and performance manager Ruben Peeters.

Hulshoff started his career as a youth coach for clubs such as Cambuur, Groningen, RB Ghana and Al-Arabi, before moving up to assistant coach at Volendam in 2019. He stayed there for two years before taking over Feyenoord’s U21 team. A year later, he took over the assistant coaching job next to Slot.

In addition to this, Hulshoff is also active in the Dutch national team. On 1 January 2023, he was named Ronald Koeman’s assistant coach, so this is another type Virgil van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo know well. The plan is that he will also take part in the EC in Germany, but it is questionable whether that might change now.

Peeters is a much younger and fresher coach. The Belgian is only 31 years old, which is quite young for a performance manager. His career started as a physical trainer at Genk’s youth team, before he was moved up to the U19, U21 and finally the first team over time.

He stayed there for four years, from 2017 to 2021, before moving on to Feyenoord. He thus arrived in the same summer as Slot. He has had that job for almost three years.