Arne Slot told to avoid Real Madrid transfer mistake at Liverpool - 'be careful'

Liverpool's manager-in-waiting Arne Slot will have a lot on his plate when he finally gets his feet under the table at Anfield. The appointment is now expected to be a formality, but the job itself will be about as far from it as it's possible to get.

On the whole, Jürgen Klopp has probably done Slot an inadvertent favor by running out of steam at the very end of his Liverpool tenure. The pressure will be a little less intolerable than it might have been had he been inheriting a team fresh off the quadruple.

But the shadow of Klopp will nonetheless loom large over Slot's reign, at least at first, with the success of the last nine years a daunting benchmark. There will also be plenty of competing voices telling him what to do.

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That's already started, with Wesley Sneijder offering some potentially unexpected advice for Slot. The former Real Madrid and Inter Milan midfielder has given a transfer tip - not to sign too many Dutch players, as he experienced first-hand during his time in Spain.

“I would be careful with that, with getting too many Dutchmen,” said Sneijder, via FCUpdate.NL. “I experienced that at Madrid.

"When I came, only Ruud van Nistelrooy, Royston Drenthe and Arjen Robben were there. And the following year Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Rafael van der Vaart joined them.

“If the four of us play football somewhere, we’re not going to talk Spanish to each other, you keep talking in your mother tongue anyway. You shouldn’t start attracting too many Dutch people to you.”

Slot will be inheriting an already-strong Dutch contingent at Liverpool, with Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch all at the club. There's also Sepp van den Berg, although it would be something of a surprise if he staked a first-team claim.

Already, it's been suggested that Netherlands international Lutsharel Geertruida could follow Slot from Feyenoord to Liverpool, after he was spotted in the away end against West Ham. But Sneijder would clearly preach caution with such additions.

Liverpool.com says: On the whole, it may be that Sneijder has nothing to worry about. Liverpool has revamped its behind-the-scenes operations ahead of hiring Slot, and the manager will actually join as a 'head coach'.

In practice, that means his say on transfer business is expected to be limited. No doubt he will have a voice in the room, and the recruitment department will bear in mind his tactical needs, but we certainly won't see an army of Dutch players arrive on Slot's whim.

More generally, this might be one of the few cases where managing in England is actually slightly easier. Most players, especially from Europe, have a working grasp of the language. If there's anyone at risk of falling into the trap Sneijder describes, it's the South American contingent already at the club, with Darwin Núñez among those to have arrived with very minimal English.