Following Feyenoord’s reluctance to part ways with Arne Slot and essentially blocking Leeds United’s chances of talking to the Dutchman, there has been a lot of talk in the Netherlands about it.
Some have said that the manager was too good for the Whites in the first place, while others believed he would have wanted to take the opportunity to prove himself in the Premier League.
We’ll never really know for sure, since he isn’t going anywhere, but Martijn Krabbendam, for Voetbal International, explains the move by Leeds United was anything but a shot in the dark.
They knew exactly what they were going to get from Slot, who is doing great work at Feyenoord these days, and that is seemingly down to Victor Orta and co., who are putting in a lot of effort to ensure the man who succeeds Jesse Marsch is the right one.
He wrote, relayed by Feyenoord Pings: ‘Last week, Leeds United reported to Feyenoord in an attempt to take Arne Slot. The Whites are not a Premier League superpower, but they are a big club based on history. Leeds also did their homework and made contact with insiders who painted a picture of Slot as a manager in the style of Marcelo Bielsa, popular in Yorkshire.
‘Slot distinguishes himself at Feyenoord with offensive and energetic football. That is striking, but there are plenty of Spaniards and Germans who adhere to the same way of playing football and have implemented it’.
In fact, Krabbendam believes that Manchester United’s decision to appoint Erik ten Hag as their manager might also have played a part in Leeds’ interest in Slot.
He added: ‘Erik ten Hag proves in Manchester that Dutch trainers can still make a different. Arne Slot could have benefited from that’.
