Why has a Dutch manager never cracked England – and can Slot be the first?

In 2017 I had one of those assignments that makes a football writer feel blessed. An afternoon with Guus Hiddink, finding out the secret to his remarkable, globe-trotting career. I suggested we start with his philosophy. “If we can find one,” Hiddink said with a snort, and chuckled at my earnestness.
Rather than killing my story, it turned out that here was the story. That here was a great manager who didn’t take himself terribly seriously, wasn’t rigid in his thinking, or interested in sermonising. That here was a man of the world whose greatest talent, as Hiddink himself put it, was simply “I like to work with people”. And for hours, in his beautiful old merchant’s house in Amsterdam, filled with art treasures and memorabilia, he told story after story, not about himself but others.
Such as Didier Drogba. “A very good guy. Though at the beginning, in training, he always came into midfield. I said, ‘Come on Didier, f*** off, you’re not a playmaker, man!’ Deco was there. ‘Look Didier, there’s a playmaker.’ ”
And Jon Moss. During a match against West Bromwich Albion, Hiddink complained about Anthony Taylor to Moss, who was fourth official. “I said, ‘Hey, this referee must be the worst in the Premier League. And Moss said, ‘You haven’t seen me yet.’ ” Hiddink recalled.
“Hahaha. Beautiful. After, Moss was our referee and made terrible decisions. But I said, ‘Hey, he can make what he likes. He’s my man.’ ”
Few foreign nationalities are more Anglophile than the Dutch, so why was Hiddink an outlier among Dutch coaches for how well he gelled with the English game and culture? He and Martin Jol remain the only Dutch managers to take Premier League clubs and indisputably transform their performance. Hiddink’s work was in two exceptional interim stints at Chelsea, Jol’s involved reinvigorating Tottenham Hotspur.
The impacts of their compatriots can, at best, be described as “mixed”. There was Frank de Boer: played four league games, lost four and sacked 77 days into a three-year contract with Crystal Palace. There was René Meulensteen, whose Fulham stint was over in a blur of 13 league games.
There was Dick Advocaat and Ronald Koeman, whose fine reputations took batterings at Sunderland and Everton respectively. And the larger-than-life Louis van Gaal, not a disaster at Manchester United, but whose press conferences — let’s be honest — were more watchable than his football.
Manchester United v Liverpool brings Erik ten Hag up against the Premier League’s newest Dutch manager, Arne Slot, a rivalry previously played out in the Eredivisie where, intriguingly, they met four times and each won twice.
Given Ten Hag’s chequered United reign has only amplified doubts about Dutch managers in England, a lot rides on how Slot does at Liverpool. “For Dutch coaches, it could be very important if Slot becomes immediately successful,” Bert van Marwijk, the former Netherlands manager, wrote in De Telegraaf. “There is discussion about the influence of Dutch coaches because they have not done well and there are more German and other foreign coaches running around in England for a reason.”
It’s 25 years, to the week, since the Premier League’s first Dutch manager — Ruud Gullit — met his end at Newcastle United. Gullit promised to bring “sexy football” to Tyneside but was screwed by his animus with Alan Shearer, whom he infamously dropped for a derby with Sunderland.
“I always got this sense of, ‘Who was the alpha?’ ” recalled Kieron Dyer, who was part of Gullit’s Newcastle squad, and after losing the derby the manager left Newcastle by mutual consent. Dyer remembered him as a “fantastic coach” but one whose ideals were too lofty for the players at his disposal. He wanted his centre halves spearing majestic balls to his wingers, and would step on to the training field to flawlessly demonstrate the art. “The problem was, he had people like Nikos Dabizas,” Dyer said.
“He [Gullit] couldn’t believe people couldn’t do what he did. He’d shake his head and look at you in disgust. Our centre backs and full backs used to get annihilated.”
De Boer, another former great player, had similar issues: big ideals but little awareness that he may have to adapt to his environment. “That one is on me,” Steve Parish says, but the Palace chairman’s reasons for appointing De Boer in 2017 were understandable.
Palace had battled relegation in consecutive seasons and survived, under Sam Allardyce, by rudimentary means. Parish wanted a more dominant style and to develop academy players and De Boer, who coached Ajax to four titles and was steeped in the Ajax way, seemed a coup. The deal for him was done in Ibiza, with the pair gazing out to sea — a time to dream. But De Boer found the Premier League a nightmare.
Ditching club stalwarts such as Martin Kelly, he tried a back three featuring two young Dutch signings, the 19-year-old Timothy Fosu-Mensah and his 20-year-old former Ajax protégé, Jairo Riedewald. Ambushed by power and pace, Palace lost 3-0 to Huddersfield Town in his first game and were being booed by half-time. De Boer departed without Palace even scoring a Premier League goal.
Koeman arrived at Everton after success with Southampton and in his first season reached the Europa League, but his second one began with an ill-fated transfer splurge, a personality clash with Steve Walsh, the new director of football, and a slump in results. Within two months he was gone.
Van Gaal seemed to divide everyone at United, including players. Wayne Rooney says his coaching was the best he received in his career, but Robin van Persie found him like a footballing straitjacket. Van Gaal ordered Van Persie to always run to the near post and Van Persie asked if he could vary things once in a while — you know, given movement and spontaneity were hallmarks of his game. Van Gaal’s blunt reply was, “No! Twenty times out of 20 — the near post.”
The stories of Van Gaal, Gullit, Koeman and De Boer feed a certain stereotype about Dutch stubbornness and ego and, maybe more than anything, their personalities made it difficult for them in England. But these aren’t the only characteristics associated with the Netherlands. It’s seen as a place where people are laidback, down to earth and fun — but also work hard and communicate well. Those traits are common threads in Hiddink and Jol.
A collector of modern paintings and sculpture, and mischievously funny, like Hiddink, Jol is a rounded sort with a natural way with people. He was full of man-management ruses — to gel Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe as partners, he bought a mosaic of the pair at a Spurs auction and hung it above his desk. And he balanced Dutch love of style (he handed both Michael Carrick and Mousa Dembélé, previously No10s, the No6 role in his teams) with awareness of what worked in the English game.
Spurs achieved their best back-to-back finishes in 25 years under Jol and developed so much talent that at one point his squad contained seven players capped by England. For a season he had Fulham playing superbly too and by a distance he is the Dutchman to have coached the most Premier League games.
“You have to know the culture in England and that has been a problem for Dutch coaches,” Jol says. “My big advantage was I played in England [for Coventry City and West Brom] so I knew the dressing room, knew the mentality and knew the situation when you lose or win games.
“One thing you can’t do with an English dressing room, for example, is slag players off in front of other people or to the press. If you have a message you have to take that player aside.
“And you need a very good eye for detail and good judgment. For a manager in England that is the most important thing.”
What does he mean? The Premier League is different to other leagues, especially the Eredivisie, Jol explains. As an incomer you need to be shrewd in spotting what works there and in which ways to develop players you sign. “That’s why I am the biggest fan of Pep [Guardiola],” Jol says.
However, with certain Dutch coaches, “I have seen them underestimate the league. They think they know better and sign a lot of players from the Dutch league, but why? In general, Dutch players are not known for doing well in England.”
Jol has doubts about Ten Hag in this regard. “I know for a fact he is a very good trainer, but has his judgment been good enough? Antony was a good player in Holland but there is no double marking there. You play one v one all the time. So, when he went inside someone, with his left foot he had a shot and scored, but in England they double up — and it’s difficult for him because he’s not good enough on the outside.”
The history of Dutch managers in the Premier League has certainly been littered with unsuitable signings, from Advocaat’s flawed splurge on Jeremain Lens and Ola Toivonen — hotshots for him at PSV Eindhoven who proved shot-shy in England — to Koeman’s folly with Davy Klaassen.
As for De Boer, Riedewald was a lovely individual and footballer but Palace discovered, when assessing his data, there were zero aerial stats for him — because in 90-odd games in Ajax’s defence and midfield he had barely been called on to make a header. And when De Boer was taken by a featherweight Belgian winger, Jason Lokilo, he dismissed concerns that Lokilo might not be physically ready for the kind of challenges he would face in the Premier League. “It’s OK,” he told staff, “we’ll just pass round them.”
Jol’s advice to Ten Hag? “Don’t use excuses because it’s not English. They hate that.” And: “Why is he not buying quick players? Then he can play in his philosophy, which is to play on the first press like he did at Ajax — instead he is playing on the counterattack.”
Slot? A communicator with a light touch, he seems more a Hiddink or Jol than a De Boer or Koeman — whereas you might say the opposite of Ten Hag. Slot’s Liverpool are already playing the Dutch way (against Brentford they achieved their fourth-best passing success in Premier League history) and he hasn’t demanded signings to help his revolution.
“He is a very intelligent boy,” says Jol, who recommended Slot to Spurs two seasons ago. “Don’t go for your own players, it’s a trap. He has understood Liverpool have a good squad and respects the guys already responsible for Liverpool’s recruitment.
“He knows what he’s doing.”