Slot becoming Liverpool’s first ‘head coach’ underlines Edwards power shift

“At a football club, there’s a holy trinity — the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.” –
Bill Shankly, Liverpool manager 1959-74

If anyone needs reminding, Bill Shankly was the football manager who transformed Liverpool.

He heaved them from the old Second Division into the top flight, winning the title before capturing the FA Cup, an unprecedented achievement in the club’s history and a moment that was once considered so unlikely, a myth grew that it would prompt the famous birds at top of the city’s Liver Building to soar.

Dominance in Europe came under Bob Paisley. Yet, of all the figures to lead Liverpool, Shankly’s impact has surely been the greatest because each of his successors is judged against not only the standards he set but also the principles he espoused: the principles the fanbase still follows.

There have been other iconic managers, and certainly better tactical innovators. Yet in the history of British football, perhaps only Brian Clough comes close to Shankly for charisma and effect — not just on a football club but a place.

It was Shankly who wrested control away from those in the boardroom. The Liverpool team used to be picked by a selection committee, but Shankly ended that culture following his appointment in 1959.

There is undoubtedly space for deeper analysis around what this development meant for those running other clubs, but, certainly at Anfield, it was Shankly’s subsequent power and fame that created a cult around him and a unique pressure on the managers that came after.

It means that Arne Slot becoming Liverpool’s first “head coach” is a significant shift because it separates him from the foundations that made the institution he now represents famous.

The decision comes after owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) re-hired Michael Edwards to run the organisation’s football department, which will eventually include a second club. One of his first duties was to source someone for the job he left in 2022 and Richard Hughes was subsequently hired as Liverpool’s new sporting director.

Liverpool have appointed Arne Slot as their new head coach — and The Athletic has every angle covered

With Edwards taking the day-to-day duties of FSG president Mike Gordon and Hughes hoping to pick up on some of the good work left behind by Edwards two years ago, a revolution isn’t exactly taking place at Liverpool.

Yet theirs is a rebuild off the pitch and Slot’s title creates the sort of structure that FSG has long wanted to implement: one where collaboration happens but focuses are clear, and the “head coach” is ultimately left to put his energies into the words attached to his office door.

In 2012, FSG planned to appoint Brendan Rodgers as a head coach, bringing in a more experienced sporting director-like figure to work with him. Rodgers’ ego and insecurities got in the way of that possibility, but FSG’s executives, who wanted him badly, were fresh enough to the sport and did not have the conviction to change his mind.

Rodgers at his first press conference in the Liverpool hot seat (Clint Hughes/Getty Images)

A system similar to the one in which Slot will operate flourished under Jurgen Klopp, except he remained “manager”. As more decisions were made by him and his power grew — and Edwards was among those to leave — the stations below changed significantly. Amid this flux, his support was weakened.

Perhaps Klopp will come to realise, if he hasn’t already, that the erosion came to undermine his own energy and strength.

Slot has led two clubs and, at each, he has been the head coach. The title will not matter to him at this moment. Given some departments need work at Liverpool, it will surely be helpful, especially in those early months, that it will mainly be Hughes’ responsibility to iron out such issues.

Given the change of titles, however, it would surely benefit Slot if, at least occasionally, Edwards and Hughes were willing to take questions publicly about what is happening at Liverpool. While the Dutchman is obligated to fulfil a whole range of media commitments, it seems unfair to expect Slot to be the best person to have all the details at his fingertips to provide all of the answers all of the time.

In his first decade at Liverpool, Edwards never did that once. While Hughes granted interviews at Bournemouth, the interest in his words at Liverpool will be far more significant.

For Liverpool, this is a new world — yet, more broadly, the club isn’t trying to do anything out of the ordinary.

While Manchester United have always employed ‘managers’ since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement and the model hasn’t exactly served them well, head coach titles have lasted at smaller clubs and have initially yielded promising results at bigger ones. 

GO DEEPER

Transfer savvy and Edwards bond: Why Liverpool have named Hughes sporting director

In January 2016, it was initially announced by Manchester City that Pep Guardiola would be appointed as “head coach”, though they have referred to him as “manager” ever since. When Mauricio Pochettino was appointed by Tottenham Hotspur in 2014, he was head coach before he became manager two years later.

In 2019, Pochettino bemoaned his position, suggesting he might as well have remained a head coach for all of the influence he had on transfers and contracts.

Since his departure, Spurs have only appointed head coaches, the title Mikel Arteta took when he arrived at Arsenal before emerging as manager eight months later. That was how long it took him to prove to directors that he was scared of nothing and was persuasive enough to get even the most disillusioned staff on side.

Arteta transitioned from head coach to manager at Arsenal (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

Slot has already had communication with some of the high-ranking people at Liverpool with whom he will be working and has made a good first impression. If he does well, it will reflect well on everyone and fans will not care whether he is manager or not — providing it seems he is happy.

Yet the Liverpool job does strange things to people.

If a person who arrives is the same person who leaves, he has done well. Just as criticism can crush a soul, veneration can leave someone believing they are the next Shankly.

(Top photos: Arne Slot and Michael Edwards; by Getty Images)