It’s fair to say that Arne Slot has made a positive impression at Liverpool so far, slotting in seamlessly at the club and enjoying plenty of success to date.
It’s been a seamless transition from the Jurgen Klopp era, with the Dutchman’s ideas and implantation of them seemingly smooth and well received so far.
One man who has experience of that is Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who has detailed how the Dutchman works behind the scenes in comments to Voetbal International, relayed by Soccer News.
He worked under Slot in the Netherlands, making 104 appearances under him at Feyenoord after arriving from Brighton in July 2021 after previously encountering him at AZ Alkmaar, where the Liverpool manager started as an assistant manager before becoming manager in 2019.
Jahanbakhsh had considered himself one of the key men at the Dutch club after a €1.5m move in August 2015, going on to manage 37 goals and 31 assists for them in 111 appearances before a big money move to the Premier League with Brighton.
Slot, though, felt there was more to be gotten out of him and the now Liverpool manager was happy to say as much in training. And he proved right, with Jahanbakhsh going on to enjoy his best season at AZ because of the Dutchman’s tweaks.
“He was really hard on me, about how I should defend, sprint back and a few other tactical things,” the forward said.
“I said to my teammates: What’s going on here? Why does he attack everyone so hard at that first meeting, especially me? It was my best season at AZ, and I became the top scorer in the Eredivisie. Arne was very important in that.
“The outside players had to be at the top of the lists in terms of high intensity runs, total distance and other statistics. He thinks that is very important for a winger in the first place. He saw returns, goals and assists as something extra. That was more the topping, so to speak.
“He is very good at pumping players up to perform well. He always struck the right tone and knew how to motivate everyone. Sometimes I joked to the boys that I thought Arne should practice his speeches in front of the mirror. It was always so natural.”
