"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but all Dutch managers coming to the Premier League have got no hair!" says Ren Meulensteen with tongue in cheek when Tribalfootball asked him to assess the next Liverpool manager.
All jokes aside, the former assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson has a lot of time for Arne Slot, although admitting initial surprise seeing Liverpool going with his fellow Dutchman.
"Only because there was a lot of talk of Xabi Alonso, though, and I think Arne Slot is a good choice," Meulensteen says of the heir to Jrgen Klopp's throne.
"Obviously, he will have different challenges to overcome because it's different to manage a club like Feyenoord. But I like his personality, he's got great charisma, he's a good communicator, he's got a clear vision how he wants to play. By the way he's set up Feyenoord to play, he will very much follow in the footsteps of Klopp," Meulensteen assures the Anfield faithful before delivering a blow to the often much praised way of playing football in the Netherlands.
"Holland has almost sleepwalked themselves into a very slow pattern of play, but Arne Slot moved in at Feyenoord and said, 'nope, we're going to be playing on the front foot. We're going to press; we're going to be bold and we're going to play'. Slot has got them playing with a variety in terms of build-up, so he's tactically very flexible.
"He uses his players' strengths but in a flexible way so if he thinks that the answers to opening up an opposition for instance lies in overlapping fullbacks, he will do that. If it lies in wingers, he'll do that. It's not going to be a straightforward 4-3-3," Meulensteen says of what we can expect from the upcoming Liverpool boss.
Slot has enjoyed considerable success at Feyenoord, reaching the first final in the Conference League in 2022, before winning the league the year after. This season, Feyenoord claimed the Dutch Cup, while finishing second in the league. At Liverpool, he will find a number of Dutch players in the squad already, not least the club captain who could prove valuable to Slot in settling in, Meulensteen believes.
"It would definitely help Arne if Virgil (van Dijk) would stay in terms of getting his messages across, but also the other way around, Virgil would say, 'this is what we've done, this has worked really well', and Arne would say, 'okay, this is how I want to do it'.
- Ren Meulensteen was talking to Tribalfootball on behalf of William Hill Vegas
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