Arne Slot makes telling Pep Guardiola prediction ahead of crunch Man City test
Liverpool manager Arne Slot will not be taking anything for granted when they face Manchester City this weekend despite the Premier League champions' recent poor form
by Chris McKenna · The MirrorArne Slot admits he will have needed to spend more time analysing Manchester City this week than most other sides.
That’s because, according to the Liverpool head coach, you can never know what the manager he believes is the best in the world is going to do.
Slot is anticipating Pep Guardiola doing something very different tomorrow when their sides meet at Anfield in a huge clash so early in the Premier League title race. City are without a win in six in all competitions and three defeats on the trot in the league means they go into the game eight points off Liverpool.
Guardiola needs to find a fix for the absence of Rodri. Slot will try to counter whatever it is as he prepares to go toe-to-toe for the first time with the City boss.
“He was the one who invented – maybe not invented, maybe it was done 100 years ago – or came up with the idea of inverted full backs and then thought, “Right, now I’m going to push my centre back (Stones) into midfield”,” said Slot.
“You always see new things or inventions with him. They have a very good and clear playing style. Always an interesting game plan as well. It is always about the players. It is not about me against him. It is always the players who make the difference.
“The only thing is if you play against him, and it’s the same with some other managers in this league as well, you think, ‘Ok, he could come up with this, but he might come up with this, or this…’ because he has so many different game-plans.
“The playing style is almost always the same, they want to have ball possession, but they can adjust certain positions. Analysing them takes even more time than some other teams who always have the same structure. But that’s what I thought about Real Madrid and then they came up with Brahim Diaz playing as a false nine which they have never done before.”
Slot, who is eight years younger than Guardiola, was still a player at Sparta Rotterdam when Guardiola was starting to make his name as a coach with Barcelona and Lionel Messi.
“It had nothing to do with me wanting to become a manager but when I played I always felt that certain balls my team-mates gave were successful, and certain balls were unsuccessful,” said Slot.
“Then, when I started to watch Barcelona, I saw that the successful balls were only the ones that Barcelona played, so that gave me the reassurance that what I thought was the right ball proved to be the right ball. It definitely helped me to create my own idea about football and my own playing style.”
Slot’s analysis this week will have included Tuesday night’s dramatic draw for his former club Feyenoord - who he led to the Eredivisie title in 2023 - against City when they came from 3-0 down in the last 15 minutes.
The Dutch manager is not one for showing sentimentality but even he couldn’t ignore his name ringing around the Etihad Stadium as Feyenoord fans honoured him while goading City. “What made this game special for me was more sitting at home, putting the volume up and hearing the Feyenoord fans singing my name,” he said.
“That’s the biggest compliment you can get if you leave a club, that the fans still like you. Of course in Holland and for me as a Feyenoord fan, I could hardly believe what I saw.”
Guardiola will have heard those chants of Slot’s name. Whether he has to listen to them tomorrow again will depend on if the Dutchman can figure out just what the City boss is planning.
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