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Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool successor faces an unenviable task… but the charismatic and relentlessly positive Arne Slot isn’t one to shirk a challenge – as Diego Simeone found out!

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Slot’s Stone Island gear suggested he might have been up for a scrap but instead he just stood his ground and smiled mockingly at Simeone, who backed down.

It was the sign of a man who doesn’t shy away from a challenge.

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Feyenoord’s coach is ruthlessly ambitious and a control freak who demands total control at a club. But he also has emotional intelligence, knows how to create a team ethic and plays attractive football.

Feyenoord coach Arne Slot has emerged as Liverpool’s favoured candidate to succeed Jurgen Klopp – with talks between the two clubs underway

Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone tried to pick a fight with Slot after a friendly in 2021
In response to being shoved, the Stone Island-wearing Slot just smiled back at Simeone

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So there are reasons both for and against his suitability for the unenviable task of succeeding Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.

Indeed, on Wednesday morning it emerged talks have already begun between Liverpool and Feyenoord with the compensation fee set at £8.5million.

On the face of it, Slot’s 4-3-3 formation, intensity of pressing and high energy attacking bears many resemblances to Klopp’s ‘heavy metal’ (Slot is more into his rap music).

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But the Liverpool vacancy requires so much more that just a good tactician.

For nine years, Klopp has carried not only a club but at times a city defiant in its own identity and independence.

That emotional burden has ultimately caught up with him but not before he won the biggest honours in the game.

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Liverpool’s new manager must not only perform in Klopp’s lingering shadow but somehow keep up his boundless energy and forge the same bonds with a demanding fanbase and players that aren’t his own.

The experiences of David Moyes and Unai Emery, after Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, have shown just how difficult it is to follow a manager of legendary stature.

Slot delivered the Eredivisie league title to Feyenoord last season, their first since 2017
Some would say the man who follows Klopp is on a similar hiding to nothing even if Liverpool fans would surely be sympathetic and patient.

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Like Klopp, Slot had a respectable but hardly spectacular playing career at the likes of FC Zwolle and NAC Breda rather than Ajax or Feyenoord.

But when it comes to coaching, Slot sees no reason to curb his ambitions, even if it has rubbed people up the wrong way.

AZ Alkmaar abruptly sacked him in December 2020 because owner Robert Eenhoorn learned he’d attended a clandestine meeting with Feyenoord and agreed to replace Dick Advocaat.

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Even as he wins trophies at Feyenoord, Slot has been unafraid to speak about his personal career trajectory.

‘My next step will not be a club in Holland,’ he said in 2023. ‘If that is my next step, then I’ve failed completely.

‘The normal next step will be to go abroad and I’ve always said the best league in the world is the Premier League.’

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The Premier League has fluttered its eyelashes back across the North Sea. Crystal Palace were interested and Leeds made Slot their first-choice replacement for Jesse Marsch in February 2023 – though negotiations didn’t get going.

Tottenham Hotspur thought they’d persuaded him to become their manager in May 2023 before Slot surprisingly decided to stay at Feyenoord and Daniel Levy turned to Ange Postecoglou.

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