Dutch rivals were never pals - but now they're foes

They are not friends, according to Arne Slot. “Friends is someone you see a lot and go out with for dinner with,” said the Liverpool manager. Erik ten Hag does not belong in that category. Their relationship, Slot claimed, is as “good and normal as with other managers”. But a rivalry has been renewed; it may not be personal between them, but it tends to be between their clubs.

- RICHARD JOLLY

They have been at the two biggest teams in their native Netherlands; now they are at the two most successful ever in England. It was Ajax against Feyenoord. Now it’s Manchester United versus Liverpool. Ten Hag is both the more established and the man whose position has been in greater peril. He has won two trophies in England. He had to wait a couple of weeks after the second, May’s FA Cup, to discover he wasn’t being dismissed. United forever feel a work in progress, while regressing last season to their lowest-ever Premier League finish.

Slot, he suggests, has a better inheritance. Jurgen Klopp left a team who came third and who sustained a title challenge until April. Indeed, their chances of the quadruple were only ended by United at the end of March in the FA Cup. Liverpool finished 22 points above United last season, though that is partly an indictment of Ten Hag. They were the last Premier League club to make a signing this summer. “It is difficult for us to make the team even stronger,” said Slot, but United seem to have a permanent need for more players.