Arne Slot is about to face into a challenge which is unlike anything he’s had at Liverpool so far.
From having had just three competitive games in charge of the Reds in his first 100 days as head coach, his next three will take place in the space of a week, with LFC’s season about to become hectic as Champions League and Carabao Cup commitments are interwoven with the Premier League schedule.
In his personal Substack, David Lynch pointed to how the 45-year-old dealt with serving multiple masters in terms of the various competitions in which he led Feyenoord, and he has some encouraging previous in that regard.
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The journalist pointed to the Rotterdam club’s run to the 2021/22 Conference League final, when in the 15 Eredivisie games which immediately followed a European match, he made a total of just 21 alterations to his starting XI, and a third of that tally came in a single fixture.
Better still, his team won nine of those 15 matches, with three draws and defeats apiece, an indicator that Slot is adept at squad management to balance multiple commitments.
Liverpool were no strangers to extended domestic cup and European runs during Jurgen Klopp’s time in charge, so the bulk of the current squad will have previous when it comes to negotiating a heavy fixture schedule.
If that’s the case for the Reds again this season, it could go one or two ways for Slot – either the players will be shattered from another campaign of 60+ games for club and country, or they’ve become so accustomed to the workload that they manage it better than most.
LFC’s lead physical performance coach Ruben Peeters worked with the 45-year-old at Feyenoord and is renowned for achieving a high rate of player availability even when balancing multiple competitions, a reputation which’ll hopefully be further enhanced throughout his time at Anfield.
The Liverpool boss reportedly prefers working with a smaller squad, hence his sanctioning of more than a dozen loan exits over the summer (The Athletic), although hopefully that approach doesn’t come back to bite us if we suffer an injury crisis to the same extent as what we endured in the second half of 2023/24.
Slot has been in charge for just over three months, but it’s only now that it feels as if his reign truly kicks into gear. The next four weeks will tell us a lot about the direction in which the Reds are heading on his watch.
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