Arne Slot on Florian Wirtz’s Impact on Liverpool & How Mo Salah and Virgil Van Dijk Stay So Good: Men in Blazers 08/09/25

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0:39Apply today at AmericanExpress.com slash Explore-Gold. Terms apply. You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network, Suboptimal Radio.

1:00A quick word before we welcome Arna Slott. It's obviously an emotional time at the club as all of global football mourns the late Diogo Jota. And the club asked us not to directly ask about his passing. We, of course, honoured that request in a time of grief. We wanted to be completely respectful of the club's wishes. Here's the interview with Arna, number 20 forever. My guest today spent his first year in England performing Anfield Alchemy, instantly transforming his Liverpool side, overseeing a calmly potent saunter to a 20th league title. Season so dominant, the celebration started when there was still an entire month left to play.

1:42He's back with some serious reinforcements to see if he can become the first Liverpool manager in over 40 years to win back-to-back league titles. It's a joy to welcome the Ibiza aura farmer himself. It's Mr Arnazslot. Hello, Rog. All good? For you, it's amazing. I'm going back to the first time we spoke, Arna, when you were barely four months into the job. Liverpool, though, already top of the Premier League table, and you lost just one of your first 30 games. You made something very difficult on the inside look very, very effortless on the outside. Can you pinpoint the exact moment, Arna, the game, where you let yourself start to believe that the title was Liverpool's?

2:24That was quite late into the season, I suppose, because you know how difficult this league is. You know how strong our competitors were and are. But the first time I thought now we are getting really, really close was when we beat City in their stadium. Because of the results, of course. But definitely also that we were able to win from them because they've dominated this league for so many years. and then to be able to win there with the gap we created to Arsenal. That was a moment where we fought, I fought. We're getting really close now. I mean, it all seemed both so smooth and also a total shock at the same time.

3:07Remember, before the season, the BBC asked about 30 pundits for their predictions and zero picked Liverpool, same number as that picked Everton, actually, to win the thing. but when you were riding that incredible trophy bus celebration an estimated 1.5 million Liverpool fans fill in the streets of the city was there even a tiny part of you that was still surprised at what you'd achieved last season? Yes, definitely but I don't think it's that strange or weird that pundits didn't show Liverpool as the one that could win the league in the start of the season we hardly did any business in the summer the year before we ended up third I think 10, 12, 15 points behind City The competitors did spend money, so probably everybody thought like, oh, they're going to be stronger and stronger.

3:53And I don't think many thought that we could go all the way without new signings. And that's why I was not surprised anymore when I was there at the parade, but still a bit. Wow, this is special what we've done this season. But it also tells you, because now people are talking a lot about the new signings we've made, But it also tells you that if you keep a team together, that can sometimes have a very good influence on the result as well. We last spoke near the end of the season. You said, I was the new signing last year, but there will be more. And those words have become true. At Feyenoord, you had a reputation for overhauling your teams, reshaping them.

4:35That seems to be what's happened at Liverpool this summer. The club have already spent over$300 million on the likes of Florian Wurtz, Jeremy Frimpong, Milos Kerkes, Hugo Eketike, maybe one more. It can take a long time for talent to arrive in the Premier League, to bed in. You're going to do that en masse. How would you both reshape the team honour? That takes time. And defend the title, which needs immediate perfection and collective performance with no margin for error. There's a big difference between Liverpool and Feyenoord. The difference is that there is a level above Feyenoord and there is no level above Liverpool.

5:13So at a club like Feyenoord it's completely normal that players that perform really well make the next step in their career. So they either go to the Premier League or to La Liga or somewhere else. Where at a club like Liverpool it's quite normal that players stay where they are. What people I think tend to forget at the moment, you mentioned just 300 million dollars spent. but people are forgetting how many money we've brought in already, not only this summer but also last summer. So last summer we had a big plus, so we earned more than we spent. And this summer people also forget that we've lost Creev Kelleher, we've lost Jirau Kwanzaa, we've lost Trent Alexandre Arnold, we've lost Luis Diaz, we've lost probably Darwin Nunez.

6:00and the biggest tragedy of all was of course that Djogo passed away. So many of them have played a lot, a lot, a lot of minutes for us. So it's not more than normal that we then also need to spend. And we've spent big, especially if you compare it to last season. But if you balance it up at this moment of time, what we've made last season, what we've made this summer, and then I think the balance is maybe almost equal. and that is something which is quite rare in the Premier League because normally teams only spend and never sell.

6:38When you're looking at prospective new signings, how do you make the distinction between a possible target who's merely a very good player and one who's good enough to be a Liverpool player? What are the traits that set Liverpool players, that set on a slot Liverpool players apart? No, I think it's hardly impossible to bring a player in that's good enough to play for us for a small amount of money. Because every player that is playing for us, that won the league for us, is probably worth around 100 million or more. So if you want to bring in a player that can play with these players or be competition for these players, you almost have to spend that amount of money unless you just find that one player that no one ever saw and all of a sudden you can buy him for 30 million and he's good enough to be a player for 100 million but that's not going to happen every single time.

7:31So if we want to improve the team or we want to bring players in that are good enough to play for us, spending this amount is normal. And this is also what this club did with Alisson in the past, with Virgil van Dijk in the past and if you add inflation, you come to the numbers we've just paid for Florian Wirtz, for example. Let's talk about Florian Wirtz for a moment. He arrived at Anfield for an estimated$157 million, new club record. Arna, your Liverpool midfield just won the title. What do you think was missing from that that made you want to pursue Wirtz? What does he add that you need? We saw more and more teams going to a low, low, low, low, lower, lower, lower, low block than is even possible.

8:23And one of the reasons why we still won those games is that we kept the clean sheet. So we were working that hard that we kept the clean sheet. So we only needed a goal to win the game. And we managed to do this a lot, but we won many of our games only by one goal margin. And I think that by adding the creativity of Florian, by adding the pace of Jeremy Frimpong, Hugo Higitike and Miloš Kerkes, that can give us weapons in games like that as well. If you don't evolve, if you keep doing the same, people do find the answers to your playing style. and that already happened a bit in the second part of the season although number-wise we got just as many points in the second half of the season and in the first half of the season but I did see us struggling a bit more I think we scored more from set pieces in the second part of the season to make this one goal West Ham United at home Nottingham Forest away Leicester City away where we won with 1-0.

9:27So we had to rely a bit more on our set pieces as well, which is a very important part of football. But in an ideal world, we are able to create even more chances against the low block than we did last season without losing our defensive structure, of course. Last season, you did transform Liverpool. You seem to calm them down a notch. But another signing, Hugh Gehrke TK, is a player who lives for transition, loves to get in behind. And you've said no team can tactically stay the same in the Premier League. If you're not evolving, you're almost going backwards. So can you give us a sense, Arne, of how you'd like your football to evolve tactically this season?

10:08No, I think last season we also scored quite a lot of goals in transition moments. We will still try to be a team that is dominating ball possession, but we're not the only team that wants that. Teams who will want that. We've been a threat all these years under Jürgen and even last season in transition as well. I think if you want to learn the league now, you have to be good in everything. You have to be good in transitions, in attack, in set plays, defensively really strong, in high press, in a low block. That is what this league does to every team that wants to win. You need to be at your best in every part of football and that's what we are trying.

10:49We're working really hard on that to achieve, to become as best as possible and I don't know who it exactly was but it is something I've read somewhere. We try to reach perfection but we reach excellence along the way. I did know that it was in De Chambos, it was in one of these series from De Chambos but it wasn't from himself. Vince Lombardi? I'm not sure but someone said it so I used it now as well. God, I bite your arm off for mediocrity, but that's just my fandom talking. I do need to ask you quickly about Rio Numoja. Just 16 years old. Kills me that that gent was born after Breaking Bad premiered.

11:28Last season, he was Liverpool's youngest ever starter during an FA Cup match against Accrington Stanley. He's looked so sharp during Liverpool's pre-season. Scored that goal against Athletic Club. Had an assist too. I've got to say, even his knee slide looks Premier League level. Ana, what do you expect Rio role-wise to play this campaign? Rio had a good pre-season It took him a while to adapt Which is quite normal if you are 16 years To adapt to the level we had the first team train at So he used that last season to be once in a while with us And in pre-season now he's done really well Brings in the quality he has Not afraid to take a 1v1 on Making the right decisions if he feels his teammate is in a better position than him.

12:14I know how hard it is for 20-year-olds, 25-year-olds, 30-year-olds to play every three days at this level. And this is something we need to give him time for as well. At this moment of time, of course, he's not a regular starter. But for him to train every single day at this level is going to be really hard and tough. So let's give him some time to adapt to everything. But he definitely made a promising start to this preseason.

12:46you'd mentioned 30 year olds lovely segue to talk about the incredible Mo Salah I'm fascinated every time I speak to him just how self-driven he remains so focused on both his mental health his physical health you know middle of the night gym sessions on his birthday celebrating just with an extra bowl of fruit as a manager how much can you coach a player who's already so self-motivated and switched on or do you just let Mo be Mo? No Mo is a great example of of a player that is still so good at that age but I think Virgil is the same and if these two wouldn't have what they have trying to get the best out of themselves every single day doing everything in their lives to make it possible to them to to to to act on the highest possible level that is something what they have.

13:37If they wouldn't have had that, then probably their careers would have gone down already at this age now. So I don't talk to them or work to them about that. What we do want is the team to get them in the best possible positions and the team to play in the best possible way to get their qualities. But it's a great example of where Rio needs to go to. So Rio is just enjoying probably preseason now. People are positive about him. but will he do the work today, tomorrow, every single day or is he going to enjoy and look what everybody is writing about him? Mo just has one focus every single day, same with Virg and this is something you need to learn I think as well and that is a great challenge for Rio and he has great role models inside his team not only Virg and Mo but also other players that are just the best professionals.

14:32One of the most iconic banners on the Kop at Anfield is that 19-foot-long painting of some of Liverpool's most successful, most transformative managers. Leaders like Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Jurgen Klopp. This summer, your face was added to it, to Liverpool's almost their managerial Mount Rushmore. How would it feel to look to your right at home games and see yourself there, your big, beautiful head amongst those Liverpool greats? Till now I was quite happy with this interview. Bald head wasn't the biggest problem, but to use the word big... I said that was respect. Don't get me started on what you've done for Bald Right.

15:16Do you have a camera in front of you or a mirror? You could be my son, Arna. You look like my son. But seriously, I mean, to see your face there. I didn't know, actually, that my face was on it. I don't think I could have seen it yet. But if it is, it was already special to win the league at this club, to win the league in this country, let alone at this club. If it's true what you are saying, then that is definitely special. To be in the same group as these unbelievable successful managers this club has had is for sure going to be special to see this. Godspeed to you, Arnaud. And Arnaud, you were right.

15:54it was Lombardi who said the quote gentlemen we shall chase perfection and we will chase it relentlessly knowing all the while we can never attain it but along the way we shall catch excellence there's no doubt that you have achieved that already to you to the season ahead bedanked you're welcome