‘I completely disagree…’ – Neil Mellor believes one criticism of Arne Slot is totally unfair
Neil Mellor has voiced his disagreement with one oft-heard criticism of Arne Slot, with the Liverpool head coach coming under increasing pressure during a difficult sophomore season.
The Dutchman stormed to the Premier League title during his first campaign in charge at Anfield, but the Reds’ fortunes have since nosedived to the extent that hopes of retaining their crown were realistically over by November.
Jermaine Pennant claimed last week that the 47-year-old now faces ‘added pressure’ due to Real Madrid’s recent sacking of Xabi Alonso, who’d been touted as a leading candidate to replace Jurgen Klopp in 2024 before the job was given to the incumbent LFC head coach.
Mellor believes Slot deserves more credit
Mellor has defended Slot amid growing scepticism over the Dutchman’s reign as Liverpool boss, and he rejected the school of thought that he merely piggybacked on the work of his predecessor in winning the Premier League last year.
The former Reds striker told OLBG (via Liverpool Echo): “I don’t like it when I’ve heard people say Arne Slot won it with Jurgen’s team. I completely disagree with that.
“Arne Slot inherited an incredible squad of players without a doubt, but he still had to manage those players. He still had to manage them and guide them and tactically set them up to win the Premier League.
“He put [Ryan] Gravenberch in a six; Jurgen Klopp never did that. He put [Luis] Diaz down the middle as a nine; Jurgen didn’t do that. He had to manage the Trent [Alexander-Arnold], Virgil van Dijk and [Mo] Salah contract situation and prove to them that he was good enough as a coach and a manager for them to stay at Liverpool. If he wasn’t, they don’t stay, and it unsettles Liverpool’s season.
“Liverpool won the league with all that going on in the background. Liverpool always had to move on, and to move on so quickly and win something so quickly with Slot was brilliant, but can that happen every season? No, I don’t think it can.”
Slot excelled last season, but the goodwill isn’t eternal
We fully agree with Mellor – while there’s no disputing that Klopp left Slot with some very solid foundations from which to build (much more so than when the German took charge in 2015), the Dutchman still had to contend with the weight of following an illustrious predecessor.
He struck the perfect balance of implementing effective tweaks (e.g. Gravenberch in a deeper role) without totally ripping up what had worked well before his arrival, and it worked spectacularly as Liverpool romped to the Premier League title with four matches to spare.
The ‘Klopp’s team’ argument stems from each of last season’s regular starters being in situ before Slot, but the 47-year-old still needed the buy-in from that group of players, whilst also navigating so much discourse over the contract situations surrounding three huge names in the squad.
While the Dutchman deserves every bit of credit for what he achieved in 2024/25, it doesn’t give him a free pass over what has gone wrong in the arduous ongoing campaign, and the smattering of boos at Anfield after the 1-1 draw against Burnley on Saturday summed up the discontent among the fan base.
We’d still be in favour of giving him the rest of this season to try and salvage Champions League qualificaition for Liverpool. If he fails in that mission, then the clamour for change could become overwhelming.
You can watch Slot’s full post-Burnley press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
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