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Jurgen Klopp he dropped his bomb, as he later discovered, in November 2023. In January 2024. went public. Liverpool‘s search for a manager could begin; not publicly, given their preference to do their work as quietly as possible, but at least with the layer of secrecy removed.
They were soon informed that Xabi Alonso wanted stay at Bayer Leverkusen for another year. For many in the wider world, Sporting CP Reuben Amorim after that assumed the status of leader. Not so, Liverpool would say; he was just one of several they interrogated. There was no desired choice, they insist, until they sat down on Feyenoord Arne Slott. But he seemed to come out of the shadows. The high-profile nature of Portugal’s bid contrasted with the low-key approach adopted by Slott. He got the job by stealth, almost without warning.
Five months after he might have done it, Amorim will arrive at Anfield on Sunday; but in charge of Manchester United. The meeting of managerial opposites brought them very different experiences in managing the two biggest English clubs. Slott had the smoothest starts at Liverpool, and Amorim the most difficult of starts at United. Slott led his team to the top of the Premier League and Champions League table. Amorim has warned that his new employers are in danger of relegation to the Championship. “This club needs a shock,” he said on Monday.
What he gets. United lost six times in December, their heaviest defeat in a month since 1930. Amorim became their first manager – or head coach, the title given to both him and Slott – to lose six of his first 11 games in charge by Walter Crickmer in the 1930s. Slot was defeated only once in half a season.
Their records so far differ dramatically. Amorim lost 54 percent of his games, and Slot only four percent. Amorim’s winning percentage is 36 and Slott’s is a ridiculous 81. It all reflects their heritage. As Slott admitted, managerial changes often come because a club is struggling; that is certainly Amorim’s recent experience. But it was clear that Klopp had left Liverpool in a good position. His legacy looks even better now, aided by Slott’s excellence with the team he left behind.
And the common denominator is that everyone works with the players of their predecessor. Slot had a transfer window, yet the total of Premier League minutes played by debutants in his reign is 18: Federico Chiesa, Liverpool’s forgotten manmade an appearance in September against Bournemouth. The Italian is the only signing in the incoming Slot era, and goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili was immediately loaned to Valencia.
Amorim, meanwhile, is entering his first window with United lack of funds and freedoms regarding profit and sustainability rules (PSR). and yet it calls for a huge number of reinforcements. He may bemoan the fact that some £200m was instead spent in the last few months of Erik ten Hague’s reign; if the decision-making of the mighty Liverpool showed a sure touch last summer, the same could not be said for their United counterparts, who extended Ten Haag’s contract after talks with a host of managers, but not, it seems, Amorim, who they then followed for several months later. Notably, Liverpool’s new sporting director, Richard Hughes, is already appearing at Anfield as United chase Dan Ashworth. only to fire him five months after his arrival and a few weeks after Amorim’s appointment.
But it’s worth revisiting part of the rationale Liverpool – both Hughes and Michael Edwards – had for neglecting Amorim last summer: his insistence on a 3-4-3 formation. “I have to sell my idea,” he said. “I have no other.” Liverpool didn’t want that managerial dogmatism. Slott said he had “no reason to change a lot of things.” His changes are more subtle: he prefers more control after the chaos of Klopp’s side of the late era, although even that difference can be exaggerated. There are, as he often says, similarities in their style of play. The slot improved, often using two deeper midfielders instead of one. He had different interpretations of some players, reinventing Ryan Gravenberch as a midfielder, using Cody Gakpo exclusively on the left, deploying Luis Diaz as a striker from time to time, each to great effect. Still, this was a manager adapting to his team, not the other way around.
Amorim, meanwhile, inherited a team without a single natural wing-back and insisted on playing wing-backs (Liverpool arguably have four players well-equipped to play as such, but he still felt the team as a whole suited a back four). With perverse illogic, Amorim claimed this week that players are losing in the formation they were bought for; in itself, this was no justification for using them in a completely different form.
In his defence, Amorim initially told United he did not want to take over mid-season. The manager who warned “the storm is coming” while still undefeated may have foreseen some of the problems that followed. Some, no doubt, is due to the managers who came before him and the executives who shaped this team; if Liverpool seem to be brimming with insightful signings, United are woefully short of them. Yet Amorim’s choices also reflect: there was no Anfield equivalent to the Marcus Rashford situation, which in turn may indicate that Slott has been given a more harmonious club with a better culture. But if Slott’s selection could be called into question in his only defeat against Nottingham Forest, nothing was as wrong as Amorim’s team against Newcastle on Monday. Which, in turn, could be because the Dutchman has more tempting options.
He used them to finish off Ten Hag: Slott’s first win in charge over Liverpool was 3-0 at Old Trafford in August. It was an early indication that United had made a mistake in keeping hold of Ten Hag last summer and that Liverpool were right to choose Slott. United are yet to make a truly successful appointment from Sir Alex Ferguson: Liverpool appear to have found one as Klopp’s immediate successor. That left Amor determined to change. So they come across as United’s disruptor and Liverpool’s continuity contender, with every indication that they were right at Anfield to move to Slott ahead of Amorim, and every setback making it harder for the Portuguese to prove he’s the right man for Old Trafford.