Arne Slot’s Liverpool host Ruud van Nistelrooy’s struggling Leicester on Boxing Day, with the Reds boss having never achieved a win over his Dutch compatriot as a manager
Arne Slot has revealed he is out for revenge against Ruud van Nistelrooy when Liverpool host Leicester on Boxing Day.
Slot has never beaten his compatriot as a manager, though has led the Reds to the top of the Premier League in his debut campaign at Anfield. Van Nistelrooy meanwhile recently took over at struggling Leicester.
While his reign started brightly, the Foxes have lost their last two games, conceding seven goals and failing to score a single time. He now faces the unenviable task of taking his side to the league leaders.
And to make his task even harder, Slot has admitted he has added motivation. That comes from the duo’s previous clashes as managers, during the 2022/2023 Eredivisie season.
Slot led Feyenoord to the Dutch title that season, but he failed to beat PSV Eindhoven, who were managed by Van Nistelrooy. PSV won 4-3 in September 2022 before the two sides drew in the reverse fixture, with Slot now looking to finally beat his compatriot.
“I was expecting you to tell the people over here that I lost once and drew once, but you made it positive saying that we won the league title! Which was true,” he replied to a question about their relationship.
“ Cody Gakpo was in his team, so I am happy he is in my team now when we face Ruud, because I think in both games he scored. Ruud is a very nice person, first of all. I’ve met him once or twice.
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“And I think he did really well when he was at PSV because for the last one-and-a-half years they have been on top of the league table, but if you look at the second half of Ruud’s season I think they didn’t even lose anymore, at all.
“When he was there Cody Gakpo and [Noni] Madueke were sold. But he still showed that he could compete for the title. Nice person, good manager, did well at [Manchester] United as well. Looking forward to seeing him, especially if we win!”
While he is hoping to pile the misery on Van Nistelrooy on Thursday night, Slot has backed him to guide Leicester away from trouble. And he believes that his Liverpool side need to be wary of being overconfident against the Foxes.
“I think the positive [for Leicester] is that teams that are positioned in the lower side of the league table, they mostly lose games, but since Ruud [van Nistelrooy] is there they also won a few. So that shows you that he has done really well, especially when he came in,” he added.
“Now I think he had two tough results in a row. These teams, all of them, it is special for them to go to Anfield and they know if they go to Anfield they have to be at their best, so they will never underestimate us.
“And hopefully maybe that’s the good thing about these 15 minutes we saw [on Sunday], that we understand we cannot underestimate one minute in the Premier League because then we are not as good as we might think we are if we are on top of our game.”
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