MNC: Arsenal's slump and can Slot turn Liverpool around?

26:33Is it still that defined school? It is the dominant school, but within that there are big differences. I think Klopp's football and Rangnick's football has differences. Then you have the influence of Guardiola. People like Flick were both influenced by what Klopp and Rangnick did, but also by what Guardiola did. When Flick came to Bayern as caretaker manager, one of the assistant coaches brought back some of the exercises that they had done under Guardiola and the players absolutely loved it. And of course, Danny Ruel was the assistant coach of Flick. So he doesn't really fit into the Rangnick mould or Klopp mould as well, though he was also before that in that system.

27:19So you have those sort of three big, if you will, influences, but there's quite a lot of crossovers and quite a lot of common ideas in that, especially off the ball. Once you have the ball, then there are differences. How vertical do you want to be? How quick do you want to be? Do you want to slow things down? It also depends on the team. It depends on the kind of players you have. If you have to work with a team that's fighting against relegations, they might not have the most technical of players for you to play beautiful possession football. You have to be more vertical and so on. But yes, I think there is a, in a broader sense, a German school of coaching, but it's not so, it's not just about the stuff that happens on the pitch in terms of the tactics and formation and so on.

28:04I think it's also the man management and, crucially, managing the owners. In Germany, they're not the owners, but there are people on the board and so on. And I think that's what German coaches, by and large, have done pretty well because they know that they can't take themselves too seriously and have to be part of the organisation and company man, if you will. Do you think we are a bit more, with our coaches and managers, what's going to happen in the next transfer window? I know that's a very broad brushstroke. I think yeah and I think the point we've made that some managers accept especially in Germany that they are part of an organisation they've got someone to answer to whereas I think we do a lot in the Premier League we go out and spend a lot of money on a new manager and he gets I wouldn't say almost too much power but he gets everything and he doesn't have to really answer to someone whether that works or doesn't work I've worked under coaches I've worked under managers sometimes it's easier one way or the other but I think with what you're saying there is they sort of buy into an idea that I'm going to be part of this process for how long we'll have to wait and see to see obviously how well we do, then the next person that comes in buys into the process again, sprinkles his little bit of magic on top whereas I think with England it's very much as you said they won success yesterday, every club won success yesterday and they're prepared to pay the top dollars to the foreign coaches to come in and do it And the point actually Chris is I'm assuming I'm working off an accurate list here and if I'm not I'm sure Southampton fans will tell me immediately that all the permanent players that they brought in were done in the summer.

29:36Nobody permanent has come in under Tonda Ecker and they brought one player in on loan, which was Lahren, at the end of the January transfer window. And now they, of course, moved Adam Armstrong on. But apart from that, he's working with the same group.

29:55Chris Sutton:Yeah, I think that that's fascinating. And that's where maybe there's an element of sympathy for Will Still that, you know, he may argue that he wasn't given long enough for the players who were brought in to really gel and Tundereka, you know, clearly got them all singing off the same hymn sheet. But, yeah, it's, you know, it's that model. I think the model stuff which Phil said about, you know, the way managers in England have been viewed with, I want total control, and now the way that the game has changed, with the sporting director, it is totally different. One thing which I wanted to ask, Rafa, about the Bundesliga and the recruitment of managers, it seems that playing careers count for absolutely nothing.

30:45Chris Sutton:Is that right where they're looking more in the Bundesliga at the skill set? And that's where the age profile and it being a younger age is maybe why that? because, you know, the Tondarek, the analyst sort of, the start he made, I know Herzler did have a, he wanted to play football but didn't make it. But that sort of, it's a different skill set. How are, you know, are there many former players in Germany sort of wanting jobs and what have you, but they just don't view it that way in the Bundesliga? No, I think it's opened up. I think the fact that about 20 years ago, German football just was prepared to look a little bit beyond the classic profile of the former coach who just comes in and just by force of nature or of his experience is going to be a good coach as well former player I think that has changed and now there's just more opportunity for other people to break into the system and that in theory should also make it harder but also then of course create more quality for those who do come through You still have, of course, the advantage if you've been a former player, if you've been a legend at the club.

32:00Ogun Polanski, who I mentioned, was a former player at Gladbach. He got a bit of a head start getting appointed in those youth roles, which have now pathed away for him to be the head coach, albeit probably until the end of the season. So these players, these kind of coaches still exist, but they now have to compete with people who are there simply by virtue of the quality of their work. Not because they have a name, not because they have the right friends. and I think that's created quite a virtuous, maybe not meritocracy is maybe too strong a word, but certainly in an industry where knowing the right people is probably not going to be enough to last enough.

32:36You might get your foot in the door, but once you're in there, you're going to have to compete with sort of football crazy obsessive, like the Tuchels, like the Nagelsmann, people who live and breathe football 24-7 and work so much harder because they don't have the charisma and the aura of being a former world-class player. And as a former player, you have to take these guys on and those who do and do well, like Vincent Kompany, for example, he's not German, but he's doing very, very well because he has a complete package of the experience, the CV and all the modern tactics and so on. You're going to do well, but you're going to have people behind you pushing you really hard.

33:12Raph, thank you very much for coming on. See you soon. Raph Hanlistan with us on the Monday Night Club.

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34:21on Five Live Sports. This is the Monday Night Club with Mark Chapman. On the Football Daily Podcast.

34:32Let me read this email that's come in on mnc at bbc.co.uk from Matt. As a Liverpool fan of 40-odd years, it doesn't come naturally for me to want a manager sacked. And in addition to that, last year when Diogo passed, I'd mentally written off this season as I thought it would have an effect on the players and staff. And I'm still of the same opinion. But I know I'm very much in the minority of the Reds fan base. If he can get something in Paris this week and then beat Fulham on the weekend, he may have temporarily kept the walls from the door. If not, the writing is on the wall. And those subjects are things, Rory, that we've discussed many times on the Monday Nightclub this season, and rightly so.

35:14but they and he look like they're in trouble a bit. Yeah, and the Jota thing is impossibly complicated and I think a lot of Liverpool fans have had a similar kind of experience that the desire to say this is almost a free pass but then watching it kind of play out is you can't necessarily control your emotional reaction to it. I think there were three things that were really bad for slot on Saturday leaving inside the performance. one was the pity whistle on 90 minutes and 4 seconds I think Michael Oliver was the referee he did not play any injury time in the second half he thought Liverpool had suffered enough that's not great the second was the site of the away end which had I think 8 ,000 people in it because obviously FA Cup allocations are bigger that was at the start by the end maybe 1 ,000 if you're being generous that's a lot of people leaving and the third was I think Sobberslai said there was no fighting spirit.

36:11Van Dijk said they gave up. Van Dijk said they gave up. And that follows on over the course of this season, him saying that performances have been unacceptable and that panic has kicked in and that something has been lacking. They're from different post-match interviews. And Slott, funny enough, said something very similar. It kind of got overwhelmed by Sobberslai and Van Dijk, who are a little bit more dramatic in their language. But Slott said in the press conference afterwards, that, and his reading of the game, I think, was pretty accurate. For the first 35 minutes, Liverpool were pretty good.

36:44They were then dreadful for 20 minutes, 25 minutes. And after that, and this is not quite verbatim slots words, but it's the gist, both teams accepted it was 4-0, which is very much what happened. Like, watching a game, you can tell when everyone's just decided, right, this one's probably over. No one, there's not a huge amount of point kind of really trying here. City were, you know, doing what they had to do. They were keeping Liverpool at arm's length. that's all they had to do. Liverpool were going through the motions. But to hear a Liverpool manager say that, that's pretty damning. To say, actually, we just accepted we were getting beaten 4-0 and that was the best we could hope for in that situation.

37:20I think the sentence, if he can get something in Paris, suggests that things are pretty desperate. Because I don't know if you've watched PSG this season, but they're a lot better than Liverpool. I think the issue for Slott now is the club want to keep him. The club want him to succeed. the club, the hierarchy, the power brokers in Boston and in Liverpool think that he is still the coach who won the Premier League at the first attempt, that he has not become a bad manager overnight. They see themselves as inherently rational and they will not make emotional decisions. And that has stood them in really good stead for the last 10, 15 years.

37:55You can't argue with their process. But to me, an idiot, the only thing I can think of is that if you stick with slot, even if you reinforce the squad in the summer, the first time Liverpool go behind at Anfield next season there will just be mutiny across the stadium and I don't think that's sustainable. So it's really hard. It feels knee-jerk, it feels reflective and it feels like, to be honest, you're kind of not giving him the space to mourn and grieve and the respect to what happened with Xhota that he needs. But I just don't see how you can get it back from here. Some of that post-match reaction, and Rory's talked about Arna Slott sort of accepting the defeat.

38:41The gave up from Van Dijk feels damning to me. And I'm coming to you on this because you, a bit like Van Dijk, would have been one of those put up for post-match interviews after terrible performances. there are certain footballers where you know he's coming out the Grim Reaper and the captain he will have known that he was going to be the one coming to give that interview probably at 3-0 and he would have known it's not a throw away line is it? I feel sorry because you're caught between a rock and a hard place you will be absolutely raging obviously he gave a penalty away, he didn't probably perform as well as he'd have liked, he's then got to come out as the captain and again you can't as that person who represents the club, you can't protect your players at that moment in time because everyone's seen the game you can't trick people into thinking we were unlucky or this would have gone this way or this would have gone that way so you've got in the back of your mind that basically we have been really poor today so I probably need to leave a bit on my teammates because that's how the fans that have travelled to London have paid all this money to have gone down to see it so it's I don't think it's a case of you trying to cast all of it.

39:57You've literally, he's the only spokesperson of the players and he's basically put his hands on that. Because there's nothing worse as a fan. There's nothing worse as a fan where your team has been thrashed and somebody comes out and goes, yeah, we're really sorry. I'd like to apologise to the fans. Yeah, exactly. You want to see some emotions. You want to see some hurt. How he said it may not have been the best way in the world, but he's basically letting the fans know that they all know that they've underperformed and let them down. and he probably doesn't feel quite the same pain as the people having to get the train home or the bus on.

40:27But they're all feeling sort of in together and unfortunately that's how it's been in quite a lot of the games this season. That's the really weird thing because I think Van Dijk alluded to this. It's obviously not the first time he's had to kind of be wheeled out in defeat, but it's also not the first time he said, well, words to the effect of we gave up or there wasn't the right attitude or we didn't respond well enough. and I find it strange that it's happened so often in such similar ways. I mean, Saturday was quite a bad example of it and they seem unable, and Slott will get the blame for this, but it strikes me it's probably the players as well.

40:58They seem unable to work out how to solve it.

41:02Chris Sutton:I agree with that. And I wonder, Phil, would you have chosen or have you chosen different words? When he says, he could have said the team is lacking in a bit of belief, the team is lacking in a bit of confidence, we're not going through a good time at this minute. But as soon as you go down the sort of attitude, we gave up route, then I think there is alarm bells ringing. I do. I think that's the worst thing he could have said. I do think that. For him or for the rest of the squad? For the whole squad. There's other ways you could have framed it, basically. And then for the manager as well. And, you know, he can turn around and say, which he did say, you know, we let the manager down.

41:41Chris Sutton:But essentially it's, you know, people are all viewing Arna Slott at this moment in time. And the one thing which I can't quite work out about Liverpool, and I'm mixed with Arnaz Lott because he did win the Premier League and the way the Liverpool owners are thinking and giving him more time, but they spent a fortune last summer. And when you look at the group of players and you look at the squad, you think, well, it's still a talented squad, but if the team are in regression this season, how much will they have to spend again to then actually for then Arna Slott to right the wrong of this season and I can't honestly work that out.

42:26I'll play devil's advocate. I think if Arna Slott walked in there and said look he'd give me next season I think he says give me another centre half or two give him a strike force that's fit I'll maybe tinker it and you'll see a different team whether that'll make a difference or not but I think that's what he'd argue. I think they should have got a centre-half in the summer. They didn't. They've not had Isak. OK, he wasn't playing great before he got injured, but they've not had him. Obviously, we know the news that Salah won't be there next season, so potentially that could be a slightly different formation or maybe a bit less of a headache of how to play him and things like that.

43:00So I think if you're Arnish Slott and you're going in and speaking to your board, I think that's how you sell, I wouldn't say sell the dream, but I think that's what you'd say. Sign me three players, a couple of defenders, as maybe another forward option, and he'd probably back himself.

43:15Chris Sutton:Yeah, and the right-back situation, that's been, you talk about the centre-halves, right-back has been an issue. But then I suppose the owners could turn around and say, well, how much is that going to set us back? 450 million and the team has gone into regression. Why should we give you another 300 million or whatever? I think there's another big problem as well. A manager that's out of his job, that's a massive favour at Anfield as well. Yeah. You know, like... The longer that Xavi Alonso is out there... It doesn't really help him, does it? I was out there and I didn't hear it myself, but I saw suggestions that the away end had been singing in Alonso's name, which feels pretty significant.

43:53Chris Sutton:Well, what do you mean a suggestion? They either were or they weren't. Who suggested it? Well, I didn't hear it, Chris, but sometimes you don't hear every song that happens in a stadium. And who suggested it? Who? I just saw people on various social media platforms saying, oh, this is bad, or this is good. they're making it clear what they feel. I'm just saying that I can't verify those reports. And in this age of disinformation and AI, Chris, it's important that we only say things we can verify. I think, by all accounts, Liverpool aren't sold on Alonso. The ownership and the sporting directors, and I think there's question marks over Michael Edwards' future, Richard Hughes' future as well, just as there should be, given kind of, if you're saying the recruitment wasn't good enough.

44:32Sorry, question marks from internally about their future? No, externally. internally I don't know both their contracts are up next year so you'd have thought that there's no kind of long term security there for anybody at the moment but if you're saying that the slot was sent into the season and it feels completely right with a squad that wasn't kind of equipped to do what it wasn't equipped to do the things that the club wanted it to do then that's someone's decision that ultimately that is someone's responsibility if not necessarily their fault and that would point the finger at Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards who are in charge of signing the players and building the squad but I think they always saw it as a two-window or two-summer job rebuilding, whether they're still around to do it, whether Slott's still around to do it, but by all accounts, they're not convinced that Alonso is the right fit.

45:23Let's talk Iraq next on the Monday nightclub. They beat Bolivia to become the 48th and final team to qualify for this summer's World Cup, so that's their first in 40 years. Their last one was also, well, it was fully held in Mexico 40 years ago. So that's where it'll partly be this time, of course. They had a parade through Baghdad over the weekend. The players got a huge welcome, open top boss, former Manchester United assistant and now Iraq assistant, Rennie Mullenstein joins us on the Monday nightclub. Lovely to see you. How are you? Congratulations. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, sir, Mark.

45:58I'm fine. Thank you. Good. That is, I mean, to qualify for a World Cup anyhow, is an achievement, but to qualify, given the logistics and the current situation, is in some ways beyond belief, isn't it? It is. It is short from a miracle, Mark, if you could say it that way. But I think a lot of people don't even realise that every time I say this, it's that that game against Bolivia was our 21st game. And if you look at it, and you think that the World Cup is, in my opinion, the highest platform where every player and every coach wants to compete at. And you think that the teams in Europe only have to play six to eight World Cup qualifiers.

46:42And maybe if you have a playoff, you might have to play 10. We have to play 21. So we were almost getting masters in playoff games because we had obviously the playoffs that were held in Saudi. There were six teams left. one group was hosted by Saudi, Indonesia and us the other one was Qatar, UAE and Oman and in my opinion player of the game should always be in a neutral venue to make sure you've got a level playing field or it is a way in a home fixture but that wasn't the case so that was questionable to say the least because we had to play in Saudi in front of 65 ,000 home fans which we drew nil-nil but we just missed out on one goal and that made us having to play a UE home and away and talking about extra time winners and seeing it through that second game we won 2-1 by a penalty in the seventh minute at home which then qualified us for the intercontinental playoff against Bolivia but it was a journey to say the least because the conflict made it that the Iraqi base players couldn't fly out because the airspace was shot so they had to collect them all from different parts in in in iraq to get on a bus trip for more than 20 hours to amman in jordan to then jump on a charter flight that was delayed for more than 24 hours to then fly to monterey and they got there sunday night and basically the first two days we could just throw away luckily we only had to play the next tuesday but the first two days were a write-off.

48:26And then you need to try to see how they are and what kind of frame of mind they are because you have to address the situation because obviously families are at risk and everything and you need to try to get them to focus on the job in hand. But we managed to do that and it's fantastic for the nation because it gives them energy, it gives them hope, it gives them something to be proud of for many years to come. It's just at the end of that answer, in some ways, it's very difficult to know where to go next, René, just because of everything that you've said there and the different things that you could pick out.

49:02When the players eventually got there and you are there in that group, because of everything that is going on and what they are going through and what their families are feeling in the region, do you in some ways have to let them go at their own pace, really? Yes, but at the same time, you need to not just not talk about it. You need to make sure that you give it a place as best as you can and you need to make sure that they know you are there for them 24-7 if they need help in some kind of form. But actually the fact that they were away from home and they could focus on something completely different because what I really was astonished about how relaxed the group was leading up to that Bolivia game because previously when they've missed out on going to qualify for the World Cup, it was because they couldn't handle the pressure.

49:58And especially they lost big games, mostly at home. And you would think, you know, for home fans, you know, that would help. But it was more of a burden for them than anything else. So playing away in Mexico was actually a good help for them and they could actually get their mind off those situations because of the routines that we had during the day in terms of team meetings, training sessions, etc. So actually the preparation after those two days and after they got there was actually really, really good.

50:30Chris Sutton:Congratulations, Rennie. I mean, I don't know a lot about the hierarchy team. Whereabouts are most of the players based and which leagues do they play in? Sorry for my ignorance here. No, no, not at all, because I was exactly the same when eventually they... Because your first reaction is when obviously Graham Arnold, who's the head coach and I work with for Australia, rang me and he said, you know, Iraq is keen and signing and wants to sign me as a head coach. What do you think? And your first perception straight away is, you know, never in my lifetime. But you need to look through those things, you know, and you need to look beyond it.

51:09But those players, Chris, it's a bit of a 50-50 split. 50 % are local-based players who play in a local league, but at a substandard facilities, training not great. They haven't got the resources that we know in terms of analysts. The medical side of the game is all substandard. And other players play in other Middle East countries like Saudi, Qatar, or they play in Indonesia, Thailand. and then you got about 15 of them playing Europe and that's all playing in leagues like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Holland. We got one player playing for Luton, Ali Alamadi, who's still in the books of Ipswich, but that's the only one really.

51:56So it's a bit of a mixed bag and not really anybody that plays in a really strong league. and Rene of those players particularly the ones in Europe how many of those are kind of diaspora Iraqis I think Ali I saw an interview with him a few a few days ago that a lot of them are kids of families who fled the second Gulf War and who've grown up in either in Britain or Sweden or you know elsewhere in Europe what kind of challenge does that present to you as a coaching staff to make sure that they kind of they fit nicely with the local the local the players who are who are born in Iraq and still in Iraq?

52:35That's a really good question. And the answer to that is culture. We are very big, Graham and I, and obviously, as you all know, Sir Alex Ferguson was big on that as well. Culture is everything. You need to create a really good culture and that culture needed to make sure that there was a strong unity. We have to do it together. Although we are in different places of the world, we carry the same crest on our chest and we represent the same crest. And I think we did that really, really well We communicated that well really right from the start because we wanted to explain them what that culture could look like and would look like.

53:10Because at the end of the day, if a culture is put on people, that's not necessarily the case that they buy into it. But if you empower them and you make them part of creating that culture, which we did, that has been massive. And they have been brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And yes, there is automatically still sometimes that the local players are sort of congregate together and the same with the foreign players. We didn't notice any kind of negative, having that being a negative influence in terms of, you know, what we saw on the training pitch or doing matches. I mean, you've worked in so many different places in your career, René.

53:52When you talk about culture, how much of it can be universal wherever you go? How much, though, has to be unique to the country that you are in? Well, you need to look at obviously cultural things that are important to the people and the culture that you're working for. Religion is obviously one of those things and you need to respect that. But there are non-negotiables in certain cultures, you know, like respect for each other, norms, values, timekeeping. and timekeeping is a simple thing, but it's a basic thing. And I know I've worked in the Middle East for a long, long time, but that is the first thing that every coach struggles with.

54:35People don't come on time, you know, during, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner. They don't come on time in terms of your team meetings. The apparel, what they wear, you know, they just turn up in flip-flops, you know what I mean? That type of thing. But, yeah, there are certain elements that you have to be really, really aware of and respect that and give it a place. within that culture, although it might not be directly fit with what you're used to. But others are straightforward. And like I said, timekeeping is one of them. Discipline, working hard, trying your best, et cetera, et cetera.

55:12When you look ahead to now the tournament, this has immediately... Mark, I don't want to. No, I think this is one of the best, the best groups at the World Cup because it just has a bit of everything. France, Senegal, Iraq and Norway. I mean, that is a good World Cup group. Admittedly, René, I'm not trying to win it. I'm just looking at it and going to enjoy it. That is a good group. Let me put things in perspective for you, Mark. Norway, France and Senegal, if you look at the players where they play, they have a market value between 500 million and over 2 billion. Iraq will not even touch 40 million, and that's including the kit man.

56:02And that is what we're up against. Right. So you don't necessarily share my enthusiasm? No. No, no, no. I know, I know. You're highlighting the challenge. I'm not, yes, because what we have in front of us is Manchester United versus Grimsby. and on the day on the day when they don't turn up or any of those nations don't turn up and we do and we have the rubber to green then in football anything can happen I mean we did exactly the same thing with Australia when we had France, Denmark and Tunisia and we went around the room and Graham Arnold asked the players and other members of staff what they think what could you expect from the World Cup and he asked me as well and I said well there's not one pundit in the world that gives Australia a chance to qualify for the last 16.

56:52Not one. We will be bottom of the group, all those pundits, based on those things, where the players play, etc. But that will be our biggest strength, the element of surprise, because nobody expects anything from us. And that is a little bit the same with Iraq. We just need to be coming up, being obviously very, very fit, physically in a very, very good state. and mentally we need to make sure that we got him in the right frame of mind and tactically we need to be just making sure we've got a good structure, a good defensive structure. Rene, thank you very much for coming on. Really appreciate it.

57:27Congratulations again and hopefully we will talk at some point during the World Cup. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Rene Munenstein with us on the Monday Night Club after Iraq qualified for the World Cup. The final team to qualify. Thanks to Chris, Rory and Phil. Five Life Sport will bring you commentaries from the Champions League quarterfinals this week. Tuesday, Arsenal's trip to Sporting Lisbon. And then on Wednesday, we'll have Paris Saint-Germain against Liverpool. I'm Rich Hall, and this is Sports Strangest Crimes presents Confessions of a Super Bowl Streaker. When people ask me what I do, I say to them, well, by day or by night.

58:06The story of one man's mission to conquer the holy grail of streaking the Super Bowl. Mark Roberts is too lively for this body. He's just like the entertainer. Mark pushes the boundaries of what is socially acceptable. No chance. Texas. It's really strict. But then the more I thought about it. The more I thought, hang on. What are you about? Sports Strangers Crimes presents Confessions of a Super Bowl Streaker. Listen on BBC Sounds.