ROTTERDAM (Reuters) – After securing the league title in the Netherlands with Feyenoord at the weekend, coach Arne Slot is the latest emerging Dutch coach linked with a potential move to the Premier League.
Slot has been widely hailed for the convincing manner in which Feyenoord clinched only their second league title in two decades but has refused to commit himself to the Rotterdam club, despite having qualified for the Champions League.
Instead, Slot told reporters, amid ecstatic celebrations in Rotterdam on Monday with more than 100,000 celebrating the club’s success in the port city, it was not the right time to discuss his future.
Supporters, who crowded into the city centre, chanted his name and demanded he stay.
“It is well known that I still have a contract with two more years and for the moment there is nothing more for me to say,” Slot said, as speculation mounted over a possible move to England, like compatriot Erik ten Hag who left for Manchester United after winning the title last year with Ajax Amsterdam.
Slot has been linked in British media reports with a move to Tottenham Hotspur, who have still not chosen a successor to Antonio Conte since they parted ways with the Italian coach in March.
Slot has revolutionised Feyenoord’s playing style in his two seasons at the club, adopting a high intensity, attacking style that had purists purring and ensured domestic dominance.
The 44-year-old had to rebuild the team this season, even after reaching last season’s Europa Conference League final, when 16 players left in a bid to balance the books.
It meant giving young players an opportunity, which he did not hesitate to do, with a bevy of new talent emerging, like Lutsharel Geertruida and Mats Wieffer, who this year won their first caps for the Netherlands.
Slot was a journeyman midfielder in his career but always wanted to be a coach, with his first major job at AZ Alkmaar, first under John van den Brom, and then head coach from 2019.
“What was nice for me is that he always thought in an attacking way,” Van den Brom said.
Feyenoord icon Willem van Hanegem this week called on the coach to immediately make clear his intentions but Giovanni van Bronckhorst, the last Feyenoord boss to win the league in 2017, said Slot would take his time to make any decision.
“That’s the kind of person he is, he will make a sensible choice,” Van Bronckhorst said.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
