Arne Slot has only done the easy part at Liverpool – the fate of Unai Emery and David Moyes serve as a warning
JACK NICHOLSON claims to have slept with 2,000 women in his prime while carving out a reputation as Hollywood’s ultimate swordsman.
Imagine being the next bloke in the bedroom trying to follow that.
When in truth, it’s the man who keeps one beautiful woman happy and content for years on end that you really have to worry about, chaps.
With that in mind, picking up the baton from Jurgen Klopp or Arsene Wenger goes down as two of the hardest jobs in football.
Arne Slot has done pretty well at Liverpool, with one defeat in his first 16 games. But compared to Klopp’s unforgettable nine years at Anfield, he is still only in the foreplay stage.
Unai Emery won 11 games on the trot in the same blistering three-month period having been tasked with leading Arsenal into a new era at the end of Wenger’s remarkable 22 years, in which he transformed one of the world’s biggest teams and football as a whole.
Yet less than 1½ seasons later, he was sacked. After an initial rush of blood, the Spaniard had flopped and was on his bike.
Arsenal missed out on Champions League qualification in his first season by a solitary point — to Tottenham.
They reached the Europa League final but lost to Chelsea.
Not bad for a debut season but in every nook and cranny of the Emirates, there were creeping doubts that he just was not the right fit.
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By the end of the first season, some Arsenal players were laughing behind Emery’s back at his poor grasp of English.
The fans were confused about the style of play.
Home games were played out amid baffled silence, the way was lost and the glue between manager and club simply did not set hard.
It’s not an uncommon trend. Trace back through history and Bruce Rioch lost only three of his first 16 games when taking over from George Graham at the Gunners in 1995. He was history after a season.
David Moyes lost only three of his first 16 Manchester United games — a decent enough return when charged with succeeding the most successful British boss of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson.
It’s difficult including Chelsea because their idea of devotion is like that of bed-hopping Nicholson.
Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, then on to the next one.
Yet Avram Grant and Antonio Conte produced the goods when each took over from Jose Mourinho.
Yet neither man really ‘got’ the club they were working for and paid the price.
Emery is enjoying a more fruitful time at Aston Villa with his second bite at the Prem cherry.
Then again, he has replaced Steven Gerrard, who did not even get one full season.
Slot and Emery come face to face tomorrow when Liverpool host Villa.
The Dutchman would do well to pull his opposite number to one side after the game to bend his ear on what to do, and what not to do, when juggling how to subtly move a club on while keeping tabs with tradition.
Slot has passed the first test with a set of impressive results.
But he still has work to do understanding, then changing, the culture at Anfield.
His brand of football won’t ever be as full-on as Klopp’s organised chaos.
The patient build-up to Tuesday’s eventual thrashing of Bayer Leverkusen underlines that, while the lack of noise at some home games this season reflects it.
Slot’s tactics, transfer business and absorption into Liverpool’s way will be much more telling over time and it’s from now that he needs to build on the early positive vibes to construct a long-term transformation.
Big football clubs don’t drop their drawers on the first date for anyone.
GYOK A GAMBLE
PLENTY of debate about how and why Viktor Gyokeres is not playing for a Premier League big gun already.
His remarkable 23 goals in 15 games for Sporting Lisbon this season makes him ripe for poaching — and that’s fair enough.
Yet Chelsea already distanced themselves from previous links with the centre-forward from a year or so ago.
And this makes me think something is not quite there with the free-scoring Swede to guarantee him being a hit over here.
If you want previous on that, google Radamel Falcao, Serhiy Rebrov, Alvaro Morata and Andriy Shevchenko to find plenty of others who did not quite do it in England.
We wait to see…
TRUMP CARD
RORY McILROY must be the only person on planet Earth to consider Donald Trump a peacemaker.
Yet the Northern Irish golfer hopes the re-election of a convicted felon as US President could be just the thing to end the lengthy standoff between the rival PGA and LIV Tours.
How reassuring. It’s just the rest of the world we have to worry about now.
Trump makes a formidable pairing with his ally, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk.
The founder of SpaceX and owner of the X social-media platform has claimed in the past to be an alien.
Golf went into meltdown when the rock ’n rollers from Saudi-owned LIV proposed 54-hole tournaments instead of the usual 72 and playing music at each one.
God only knows what will happen should Trump and Musk get their hands on the Stableford scoring system.
EERIE SILENCE
WALKING down to Fulham’s London derby against Brentford on Monday, it was eerily quiet.
Then the peace was broken by the noise of a helicopter passing overhead having probably just taken off from the nearby helipad in Wandsworth.
It made me think how much I miss the sound of those police choppers which used to hover around to keep an eye on things when there was a ‘tasty’ fixture in town.
The constant heavy whirring made for a crackle in the air, especially at night matches.
Anyone else feel the same? Just a thought.
MUM’S WORD
STORY of the week was James Maddison admitting he has been in trouble with his mother for taking his shirt off every time he scores.
With only seven goals since August 2023, the Tottenham midfielder clearly doesn’t give his old girl much grief and should still get his pocket money.
But it got me thinking that while today’s over-paid, overhyped and often over-excitable Premier League stars might be bigger than their managers, they still all answer to one person.
So would it not be a good idea for all top-flight chiefs to be given the numbers of each player’s mum when they sign?
Any backchatting or not eating your greens after training and the real boss is just a call away…