Tottenham were very close to hiring Arne Slot in the summer of 2023, but their fans will now be angry at him.
Spurs targeted Slot but could not agree a compensation package with Feyenoord, and the Dutchman would go on to join Liverpool a year later.
Slot has since won the Premier League title, while Tottenham’s manager of choice Ange Postecoglou was dismissed at the end of last season.
Postecoglou won the Europa League and finished 17th in the Premier League, but he was hard done by in terms of injuries within his squad, and Slot can now relate to the problems the Australian faced at Spurs.
Arne Slot bemoans Liverpool injury cluster
Liverpool will face Newcastle in their second Premier League game, but they could be without all three of their best right-back options, with Jeremie Frimpong, Conor Bradley, and Joe Gomez all injured or lacking match fitness.
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Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Slot bemoaned this bad injury luck, and highlighted how difficult it is to have several injuries affecting one position.
“You cannot prepare for two injuries in one position. It would be stupid for us to have three right-backs or five left-backs, although we have three left-backs at the moment.
“We are unlucky that all the right full-backs are injured.”
Given the injury issues Postecoglou faced last season, with both of his main centre-backs missing for a lot of the campaign, Spurs fans will have absolutely no sympathy for Slot, with the rest of Liverpool’s squad fully fit after a summer of heavy spending.
Indeed, the same is true already this season with a number of injury issues already, not least with Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison being out until 2026.
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Tottenham need to address injury crisis in midfield
Tottenham’s injury crisis last season saw them finish just one place above the relegation zone, which led to Postecoglou’s dismissal.
However, it appears that Daniel Levy has not learned his lesson. While Tottenham have more options at centre-back now, with Kevin Danso and Luka Vuskovic joining the squad, they already have a crisis in midfield.
Maddison and Kulusevski are both out with long-term injuries, leaving Spurs with no natural number 10, and this is a far greater issue than the one Slot is facing right now.
If Spurs do not address this crisis, they will face similar issues to the one which hit them at centre-back last season, and this could completely derail their campaign.
And there is absolutely no way Slot can complain given how comparatively little he has had to deal with compared to life at Spurs.