Arne Slot reveals TRUTH about Liverpool's hyped 'head coach' change

Life under Arne Slot certainly has its differences to life under Jurgen Klopp, not that you could particularly tell by the league table.

Liverpool build up at a more considered pace. They press in a different structure. Ryan Gravenberch looks like the best defensive midfielder in the world.

And all of this follows the furore of Slot being named as Liverpool ‘head coach’, not ‘manager’ like his predecessor Jurgen Klopp was.

It was initially treated as a downgrading of the position, a restructure at the executive level with Michael Edwards as FSG’s CEO of Football, Richard Hughes as Sporting Director and Slot as head coach.

Jurgen Klopp had rightfully earnt his omnipotency. He reportedly had final sign off on an array of club-related activity and, with the club returning to its rightful place at the top of English football on his watch, no one would disagree.

So people didn’t know what to expect with Slot seemingly directed to focus only on the on-pitch side of things.

What actually is Arne Slot's role?

A new report in The Telegraph, however, indicates that Slot’s role isn’t all too different to Klopp’s.

“Yeah, it would be really weird [if not]” Slot answered regarding if he has input into signings the club makes.

“There’s no sporting director in the world, even if you have legally no input, that he would bring a player in or extend a player that you don’t want. You always talk about these things. The good thing about being a head coach is that you can always say if these things [like questions about contracts] come up, ‘Go to the sporting director!’”

Slot’s mention of “legal input” is noteworthy here. Whilst it may not be an admission of his situation, it does indicate that putting that level of power in his contract may have been part of the discussions he had before joining the club.

Naturally, though, the club didn’t get where they are by signing players that the person running the football side of things doesn’t particularly want.

“If you call me manager or head coach that’s different than how it was.” Slot continued” I’ve always been a head coach and I’ve always been involved in contract situations like, ‘Who do you want to extend?’”

“But I’m not the one that is sitting in front of the agents talking about money. I don’t think Jürgen [Klopp] did this? I think there is no difference. I don’t know because I don’t know how it worked. I know that we spoke for quite some time about ‘manager’ or ‘head coach’. We’ve spoken about it a bit now but for me it is the same.”

Slot clearly doesn’t think his power is less than that of Klopp’s and does think his role is largely the same. And like anybody in his role, he will indicate which players he wants to stay at the club and will work to replace players he wants to replace.

So whilst it may be different on the pitch, the title seems to be the only real difference for the new head coach.