Nistelrooy and Leicester not being taken lightly, says Arne Slot as his table toppers Liverpool take on the Foxes on Boxing Day.
Nistelrooy and Leicester City pose their own set of problems and cannot be taken lightly, says Liverpool boss Arne Slot.
According to Arne Slot, Leicester won’t be undervalued at Anfield on Boxing Day because of his experience playing against Ruud van Nistelrooy in the Netherlands and Liverpool’s short loss to Tottenham.
The Liverpool manager led Feyenoord to the Eredivisie title in 2022–2023 but lost 4–3 away and drew 2-2 at home, failing to defeat Van Nistelrooy’s PSV. In a season when Slot’s team won the league by seven points from their nearest rivals from Eindhoven, PSV was one of just two clubs to defeat Feyenoord.
Following a victory over West Ham and a draw with Brighton to begin his Leicester reign, Van Nistelrooy has now lost two straight crushing games. The 3-0 home loss to their other struggling team, Wolves, last weekend coincided with Liverpool’s 6-3 thumping of Spurs, solidifying their hold on the Premier League top spot. Slot maintains, however, that complacency against a coach with Van Nistelrooy’s background will not be tolerated.
“I was expecting you to tell 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 said. “Cody Gakpo was in his team, and I’m happy that he’s in my team when we face Ruud because Cody in both games I think he scored.
“Ruud is a very nice person, first of all. I met him once or twice. He did really well when he was at PSV. I think for the last one and a half years PSV 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 lose any games at all. And PSV started buying a few more players than they did when he started working there. 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 Man United as well. I’m looking forward to seeing him, especially if we win!”