This is an updated version of an article first published on May 14, 2023.

In 2020-21, the season before Arne Slot became their manager, Feyenoord finished 29 points behind champions Ajax. They came fifth, the same number of points from the top of the table as they were from the bottom three, with the football under Dick Advocaat very uninspiring.

Two years later, the Rotterdam club were champions, having spent virtually the whole season leading the Eredivisie. It was a remarkable turnaround which prompted a succession of English clubs to seek to secure his services.

Crystal Palace were among them, as were Leeds, who had Slot on their list of possible replacements for Jesse Marsch in February 2023 and held talks with him in the Netherlands. Those discussions did not develop.

Tottenham, meanwhile, thought they had persuaded him to move to north London in May 2023, with Feyenoord apparently resigned to losing him until Slot surprisingly decided to stay put. Spurs turned to Ange Postecoglou instead.

Almost a year on, Slot’s stock has continued to rise. Feyenoord have not been able to defend their Eredivisie title but they have only been denied by a remarkable campaign by PSV, who have lost just once all season. Slot’s side have only been beaten twice in the league — and not at all since December 3 — and won the Dutch Cup last weekend.

Now it has emerged that Slot is a leading contender for the Liverpool job which will be vacated by Jurgen Klopp this summer.

But why is he attracting such interest — and what is his background?

Arne Slot was slow.

As a player, Slot was a perfectly decent midfielder, with the bulk of his appearances coming in the Dutch second tier. He was technically very good, usually playing as an attacking midfielder or No 10 but, in the words of his former team-mate Edwin de Graaf, he was “not so fast”. Slot the coach once said that he would not have picked Slot the player.

This meant he had to rely on others around him to do a lot of the running. “I was a hard worker, he was the more technical player,” says De Graaf, who played alongside him at NAC Breda.

Slot challenges Newcastle’s Nolberto Solano (Photo: Adam Davy/EMPICS via Getty Images)

But his limitations as a player have helped him become the coach he is today because they enhanced his appreciation of how to make a team function as a cohesive unit. He was living proof that one player cannot do his job unless a colleague is doing theirs.

He was always going to be a coach, moving from the playing squad to the coaching staff at PEC Zwolle immediately after his retirement.

“Some players you can see are going to be coaches,” says De Graaf. “I also played with Alfred Schreuder (the former Ajax manager) and both him and Slot… nobody is surprised now they’re both coaches.

“He would ask the coach why they were using certain tactics. And in the dressing room, he would talk to the group about (for example) a way of pressing or defending. He would ask: ‘Why were we doing it this way? Would it be better to do it this way?’. He would make suggestions to his coaches.

“But he would do it in such a good way. He wouldn’t do it with an attitude: he would ask the coach: ‘What do you think about this?’. He would also very quickly see what the opponents were doing.”

Slot is carried off by his PEC Zwolle team-mates (Photo: VI Images via Getty Images)

“At that time, he was already looking in an analytical way,” Henk ten Cate, who brought Slot to Breda, told Voetbal International in 2022. “He was busy with tactics and asked questions at training.”

It is worth noting this was not when Slot was in the twilight of his career and was worrying about what would come next. Slot and Ten Cate worked together in 2002-03 when Slot was 24. He was one of those players who used his time on the pitch as an extended apprenticeship for when he moved to the touchline.

Slot hung up his boots in 2013 after playing for PEC Zwolle and immediately joined the club’s youth academy as a coach.

He then spent three years as a coach at Cambuur, who had just been promoted to the Eredivisie, after which he moved to AZ Alkmaar to be assistant to manager John van den Brom, still only 39 when he took that job. “We always searched for young, new coaches,” says Van den Brom. “He was an interesting coach because he wanted to develop.”

It was during these years Slot clarified what sort of football he wanted to play, helped by a series of formative relationships with other coaches.

At AZ, there was Van den Brom and Pascal Jansen (who managed AZ for four years), while at Cambuur he worked closely with Marcel Keizer, who would go on to manage Ajax and Sporting Lisbon. He also shared ideas with Pep Ljinders, now Klopp’s assistant at Liverpool, and, with a group of other coaches, created a bespoke player database. At the time, the data resources available to them were far from adequate, so they built their own.

“What was nice for me is that he always thought in an attacking way,” says Van den Brom, before mentioning something that comes up time and again whenever you speak to someone about Slot.

“(His focus was) how can we make it clear to the players how we want to play? We were always searching for different ideas.”

Van den Brom consults with Slot on the AZ bench (Photo: Ed van de Pol/Soccrates/Getty Images)

It is fine for a coach to have ideas, but they have to be clearly transmitted to the players. Slot’s biggest quality and one he places significant emphasis on — he believes only 60 per cent is the idea and 40 per cent is how clearly you explain it — is his ability to communicate. His ideas are projected onto the pitch because his thoughts are clear and his words are carefully chosen.

So what are those ideas?

“They’re very attacking, very aggressive, with a lot of pressing,” says Martijn Krabbendam, a journalist for Voetbal International who has covered Slot’s Feyenoord. “High intensity, a lot of energy, and they can only do that if they’re very fit.

“He always wants to play attacking football, he always wants possession, he always wants a good set-up from the goalkeeper to find free space and free players in the midfield. It’s no secret he is crazy about Guardiola — he’s an example.”

Van den Brom adds: “We used a lot of videos of Manchester City and Bayern — he was crazy about Pep. How his teams create space, how they attack.”

Guardiola is the name that keeps coming up, but Slot also takes inspiration from a variety of other coaches: Marcelo Bielsa, Jorge Sampaoli, Jurgen Klopp, Luciano Spaletti, Mikel Arteta. All have their own ideas, so does he, but one thing they all have in common is their intensity.

Before he became Breda coach, De Graaf spent a week with Slot at Feyenoord, observing how he works. “Every session is with high intensity,” he says. “Every workout, passing drill, or five vs five — everything is with high intention and everything is with an idea. Every player knows exactly what he wants from them. He’s good at making clear why he’s doing certain exercises.

“He’s as honest as possible, so the players really like him.”

Slot believes his teams have to be intense because it essentially gives them two ways to win: if the quality of their play is lower than that of their opponents or they are having an off day, they can win by outrunning and outworking whoever they are playing.

There is also a recognition of, and mitigation against, the fitness concerns that come with such an intense style of not just playing, but training. He works closely with his data and fitness teams: when they tell him a player’s numbers are dropping or they are in the ‘red zone’, he will ease off.

Transitions are quick and passing is certain. Slot likes to work with younger players who are keen to learn. “If you have a young group, then, as a trainer, you can take the boys through videos in your desired playing style,” he said a few years ago.

For example, when Tyrell Malacia left Feyenoord in 2022 for Manchester United, he chose to replace him at left-back with the 20-year-old youth team product Quilindschy Hartman. When he needed a central midfielder, he took 22-year-old Mats Wieffer from Excelsior Rotterdam in the Dutch second tier. Both were subsequently called up to the Dutch national team. Most of the key players in Feyenoord’s title-winning season were aged 24 and under.

Hartman was promoted by Slot (Claudio Pasquazi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

His focus is on the collective. He believes the team makes the individual look good.

Most of all, the priority is on entertaining football. The goal is not to win at any cost, but to provide exciting, as well as winning, football. Voetbal International wrote: “He believes that special football is more remembered than a prize with boring, uninspiring football.”

Players seem to adore Slot.

Oussama Idrissi, who played a key part in Slot’s teams at both AZ and Feyenoord, was asked last year by the Dutch newspaper AD where Slot ranks in the coaches he has played under. “For me, he’s the best,” said the Moroccan winger. “He can develop players and make teams play fun football.”

When it was pointed out that he has also played under Julen Lopetegui, Herve Renard and a guy called Erik ten Hag, Idrissi reiterated: “Slot was the best.”

You will not struggle to find other players with similarly effusive things to say about him. “He is one of the best managers I’ve ever seen,” said Alireza Jahanbakhsh, the Iranian forward currently playing under Slot at Feyenoord. “In football terms, even the best. At the moment, he is the best in the Netherlands.”

Reiss Nelson spent the 2021-22 season on loan at Feyenoord, becoming a regular in the second half of the campaign. “Arne Slot is a great manager,” he told the Colney Carpool podcast. “He really got me into my rhythm. He gave me a lot of opportunities to play and I excelled.”

“It’s a shame,” said Myron Boadu, shortly after Slot left AZ. “Arne is a fantastic person and a fantastic trainer who really let us play football in the style of Manchester City or Barcelona in the good times.”

“He’s as honest as possible, so the players really like him,” says De Graaf.

Nelson enjoyed life under Feyenoord (Pim Waslander/Soccrates/Getty Images)

Slot has not gained the backing of these players just by being straightforward, though. The players like him because they win under him. But, perhaps more than that, they follow him because most of the things he tells them come true.

“Before playing Marseille (in the Europa Conference League semi-finals in 2022), during training he told his midfielders to play long balls out to the wingers, over the top,” explains Krabbendam. “(Orkun) Kokcu, the midfielder, was so tired of it — he asked: ‘Why do we have to keep playing these long balls?’. Slot said he would explain later.

“In 20 minutes, Feyenoord were up 2-0 and both goals came from long balls behind the Marseille defence. He knew that was a weakness of Marseille. If you speak to the Feyenoord players — and it doesn’t matter which players — they will tell you that whatever this coach says, it happens. It’s remarkable. They have blind confidence in him because what he says comes true.”

He is no hardliner or a particular disciplinarian. He emphasises positivity. When his video analysts put selections of clips together for players to watch, allowing them to scrutinise their own performances, he asks that most of them are positive. In particular, the last one is always positive so the players leave their session feeling good about themselves.

Arguably, the player who most benefitted from Slot’s tenure at Feyenoord was Kokcu, who came through the ranks at Feyenoord.

Kokcu (centre) excelled under Arne Slot (ANP via Getty Images)

Previously regarded as a talented but slightly insubstantial No 10, Kokcu came back from Euro 2020 with Turkey to find things had changed. No longer would he be able to create and let his team-mates do his running for him.

After Slot’s first competitive game in charge, a Europa Conference League game against Kosovan side SF Drita, the new coach sat down next to Kokcu on the flight home and explained that he needed more from him. More running, more pressing, more chasing back. And it worked.

Even after only a few weeks of working together, Slot convinced Kokcu that he had to significantly improve physically.

Kokcu is close friends with Malacia (the two came through the Feyenoord youth team together) and had observed the defender’s physical development since he started working with a physical trainer in Rotterdam. Kokcu went to the same trainer and, within weeks, had become the worker Slot demanded.

“If you see him now, he’s a modern midfield player,” says Krabbendam.

To illustrate this point, take a look at this touch chart for Kokcu in Feyenoord’s Europa League quarter-final first-leg victory over Roma in April 2023. The concentration is in the middle, but there are very few areas of the pitch he did not cover.

The disruption to football caused by COVID-19 produced many ‘what ifs’, but there cannot be many bigger than for Slot.

In his first season as AZ head coach, they had already beaten Feyenoord and PSV 3-0 and 4-0 away respectively before a 2-0 win at Ajax in March 2020 put them level on points at the top of the Eredivisie with the Amsterdam giants. There were still nine games remaining but AZ had the momentum.

The following week, the season was suspended as the pandemic took hold. The campaign was ultimately cancelled completely in April and the chance to win just the third title in AZ’s history was scuppered.

They started the following season in similar style, going undefeated until the start of December. Then it all ended quite abruptly.

Feyenoord announced that veteran manager Advocaat would be leaving at the end of that campaign. Slot was the obvious replacement but, a few days later, the AZ board got wind of talks between Slot and the Rotterdam club and promptly sacked him. He was clearly ready for a step up, but it was far from the way he wanted to leave the club.

“You always want to leave by the front door,” says Van den Brom. “So it wasn’t good for Arne and it wasn’t good for the club.”

He spent the intervening months playing golf and planning for the move.

It worked. The improvement in Feyenoord’s football — and results — was almost instant, moving from a distant fifth to a closer third, scoring more goals, conceding fewer and winning more games. They also reached the Europa Conference League final, where they lost to Roma. Slot won the Rinus Michels award for best coach in the Eredivisie.

If you want to quantify Feyenoord’s improvement under Slot, consider FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index, which uses underlying metrics to calculate a team’s attacking and defensive strength. Slot’s arrival at the club coincided with a steady rise up the rankings, peaking on a score of 76.6, the 21st-highest in world football. Not bad for an Eredivisie club.

But here is perhaps the most compelling evidence that Slot has something.

In the summer after that first season, his Feyenoord team was gutted. Top scorer Luis Sinisterra was sold to Leeds. Malacia went to United. Marcos Senesi to Bournemouth. Nelson’s loan spell ended and he returned to Arsenal. Midfielder Fredrik Aursnes joined Benfica. Guus Til (on loan at Feyenoord from Spartak Moscow) moved to PSV. All four players who had chalked up double-figure goal tallies the previous season had left.

And yet, Feyenoord improved. Kokcu and a few others stayed, but in came Santiago Gimenez, who has gone on to be their top scorer. Slovakian defender David Hancko arrived from Sparta Prague and excelled. Idrissi, who starred for Slot at AZ, was rescued from Sevilla on loan. Wieffer and Hartman were essentially plucked from nowhere and are now full internationals.

Slot advises Gimenez (ANP via Getty Images)

They took top spot in the Eredvisie just before the World Cup break and did not relinquish it.

PSV may have deposed them this season but there is no sense that there has been a significant drop-off in performances: Feyenoord could yet surpass their league-winning points tally from last season of 82.

Slot is revered for winning just Feyenoord’s second Eredivisie title since the turn of the century, and he now has Champions League experience — albeit he was unable to lead the club out of the group stage, despite beating Lazio and Celtic.

Liverpool’s interest is understandable. Any club that wants a young, forward-thinking coach who prioritises fast, intense, attacking football would be foolish not to take a look.

(Top photo: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images))

Adblock test (Why?)

Feyenoord head coach Arne Slot has emerged as a leading candidate in the search for Jurgen Klopp’s successor at Liverpool.

The Dutchman is on the shortlist having satisfied many of the relevant criteria set during the club’s recruitment process.

Slot led Feyenoord to the KNVB Cup last weekend and previously masterminded their Eredivisie title triumph in 2022-23.

GO DEEPER

Arne Slot - a champion with Feyenoord and a manager coveted by the Premier League

The 45-year-old’s attacking brand of football appeals to Liverpool, along with his impressive track record of developing young talent.

However, his appointment is not a done deal with Liverpool continuing to assess the merits of other candidates.

Slot, who turned down Tottenham Hotspur last year, is attracting interest from a number of other top European clubs and Feyenoord remain keen to retain his services.

His current contract runs until 2026 and there is no release clause.

Liverpool’s search for Klopp’s replacement started last November after he informed the owners that he intended to stand down at the end of the season. Klopp subsequently made his decision public in January.

The process is being led by Fenway Sports Group’s CEO of football Michael Edwards, alongside new sporting director Richard Hughes.

GO DEEPER

Access all areas at Arne Slot's Feyenoord: Kickboxing, Beckham clips and why he stayed

(Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

Adblock test (Why?)

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp expects Diogo Jota to be sidelined for two weeks after suffering another injury setback.

The Portugal international only returned to action earlier this month following knee ligament damage but complained of discomfort in his hip after scoring in Sunday’s 3-1 win at Fulham.

Jota’s injury a blow to Liverpool’s Premier League title challenge with the 27-year-old likely unavailable for Wednesday’s Merseyside derby at Goodison, Saturday’s trip to West Ham United and the home clash with Tottenham Hotspur on May 5.

“Diogo scored the goal, felt a little bit and now we found out it’s a little bit more so he will be out for two weeks,” Klopp said.

“Before which game where he didn’t start (Atalanta away), he got a knock – normal challenge, then felt a little bit at the hip. That was then fine because we didn’t start him, brought him on, that was alright.

“Then he started the last game, was obviously okay and then with the finish….. It’s a small one but we are late in the season so obviously now it’s not a great moment for each injury pretty much.

“When I say two weeks, actually it’s pretty much nothing, but enough to not be available.”

GO DEEPER

'It's an obsession': How players deal with the pressure of a title race

With Liverpool trailing leaders Arsenal on goal difference and a point ahead of third-placed Manchester City, who have a game in hand, the final Merseyside derby of Klopp’s reign is crucial in the context of the title race.

Jota’s absence is set to lead to Darwin Nunez earning a recall after being on the bench for the past two matches.

“It’s super important for us — that’s clear,” Klopp added.

“Goodison Park can create quite a good atmosphere. If you play Liverpool, it’s about more than just three points – that’s how everyone sees it there. We will never get underestimated when we arrive there.

“I am very positive. This last part of the season is not about playing the freshest football of the whole year. That would be strange with how the schedule works out. But you have to win games and I think we know how to do that. We have to overcome each opponent in a specific way.”

GO DEEPER

How Carvalho was rejuvenated at Hull - and does he have a Liverpool future?

(Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

Adblock test (Why?)

On the day Liverpool imploded at home to Atalanta, losing 3-0 at Anfield to begin their exit from the Europa League, Fabio Carvalho was helping to make news of a different kind 100 or so miles away.

The 21-year-old was among hundreds of drivers caught in gridlocked traffic in Hull and, with a BBC TV reporter unaware of who he was asking for comment, a smiling Carvalho wound down his window and offered his take on the bumper-to-bumper chaos.

“It’s a mess, that’s all I have to say,” he said (48 seconds into the clip below).

A loan with Hull City, though, is proving anything but. Carvalho — dubbed “the lad from Look North” by Hull’s social media channels on the back of his unexpected TV appearance — has found himself a happy temporary home with the Championship club and is flourishing away from the Liverpool spotlight.

There’s more drama than a soap opera with bridges in Hull, Grimsby and on the M62 at the moment…and Drypool Bridge in Hull is now closed until further notice.
It’s causing traffic chaos in the city.
Here’s tonight’s @looknorthBBC piece #BridgeMenders pic.twitter.com/G7yRooVK5E

— Phillip Norton (@phillipnorton) April 11, 2024

Carvalho has seven goals in his last 11 games and the only frustration — for club and player — is that this season is running out of road. Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Watford left them six points adrift of the Championship play-offs before facing Coventry City in their game in hand tomorrow.

Carvalho, nevertheless, has salvaged his own season in East Yorkshire. Its first half had been close to a write-off when he was largely overlooked during an unhappy spell at RB Leipzig in Germany, but the termination of one loan has allowed another, far more productive one to flower.

Fabio Carvalho struggled at RB Leipzig (Luciano Lima/Getty Images)

The form shown with Hull in the past two months has been close to the level that earned him a £5million ($6.2m) move from Fulham to Liverpool as a teenager two years ago.

There were few, if any, more talented players than Carvalho in the Championship back then, the precocious star of a Fulham team that cantered to the title. “You know how I love the boy,” said his Fulham manager and fellow Portuguese Marco Silva. “He has a brilliant career in front of him.”

That has not always looked a certainty at Anfield, but time spent with Hull has brought reminders of his talent before a summer when he will celebrate his 22nd birthday. The big question is: what comes next?

Should Carvalho require a character reference to place in front of his next manager, either when returning to Liverpool or moving elsewhere, Liam Rosenior will gladly head up the queue. Hull City’s head coach pushed hard for the January move and has not been disappointed.

Rosenior found Carvalho cleaning his own boots in a sink at the club’s training ground one afternoon last month, saving the club’s kit man a job.

“He’s just so humble and he’s going to have a great career because he’s got the right mentality,” Rosenior said. “He wants to work. I have to drag him off the training pitch every day.”

Carvalho has also been popular with team-mates. He is said to have been engaged, likeable and polite around a dressing room still holding promotion hopes. Motivations have never been questioned. He has never come across as a loanee going through the motions at a level most would consider beneath his ability.

There was a sense that Carvalho did not do himself justice in his first few weeks at Hull when his match fitness levels were lacking after only three starts in five months with Leipzig, but the improvements have been noticeable.

Carvalho was excellent in a 2-1 win away to Southampton in mid-February and followed that up with more goals against promotion rivals West Bromwich Albion, Leicester City and Leeds United.

There were two more goals in a 3-1 win away to Cardiff City and another in a comfortable home victory over Queens Park Rangers 10 days ago. There have been clever, cute finishes and rasping drives, adding the gloss to increasingly influential performances. Only five players (Josh Sargent, Ellis Simms, Che Adams, Sammie Szmodics and Jamie Vardy) have scored more Championship goals since Carvalho made his Hull debut against Norwich on January 12.

Most Championship goals since Jan 12 if(["rgb(17, 17, 17)", "rgb(0, 0, 0)", "rgb(18, 18, 18)", "rgb(26, 26, 26)"].indexOf(getComputedStyle(document.body).backgroundColor) != -1) {var x = document.querySelectorAll("#ath_table_589002 .ia-hlt");for (var i = 0; i < x.length; i++) {x[i].classList.add("dark-mode");}}var all_table_images = document.querySelectorAll("#ath_table_589002 img"); for (var i = 0; i < all_table_images.length; i++) {all_table_images[i].removeAttribute("onclick")};var link = document.createElement("link");link.rel = "stylesheet";link.type = "text/css";link.href = "https://use.typekit.net/cuz4pky.css";document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD")[0].appendChild(link);var link = document.createElement("link");link.rel = "stylesheet";link.type = "text/css";link.href = "https://use.typekit.net/dtk6elt.css";document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD")[0].appendChild(link);var link = document.createElement("link");link.rel = "stylesheet";link.type = "text/css";link.href = "https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/css/tables.css";document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD")[0].appendChild(link);

Saturday’s goalless draw away at Watford showcased Carvalho’s quick feet again, but the early penalty he won could not be converted by Turkey international Ozan Tufan.

Carvalho has been given a licence to express himself by Rosenior, typically playing as a central No 10 with the freedom to roam. Hull have tended to play without a recognised centre-forward in the absence of Manchester City loanee Liam Delap, another player borrowed from the Premier League, with Carvalho and Tufan filling the void in fluid roles.

It was part of a vision sold to Carvalho by Hull in early January. Owner Acun Ilicali and vice chairman Tan Kesler both held Zoom calls in a bid to convince the player to join, as did Rosenior, who mapped out where Carvalho would operate and how he could develop. The pair have both said they “clicked” since their first meeting.

Calls also came from Jean Michael Seri, a former team-mate of Carvalho at Fulham, and Tyler Morton, another youngster loaned from Liverpool. “He’s fantastic, I love Fab,” Morton told The Athletic in January. “Not only as a player but as a person.”

Carvalho looks like a player reborn at Hull (George Wood/Getty Images)

Ilicali suggested Carvalho eventually opted for Hull ahead of offers from Premier League clubs and rivals at the top of the Championship. A social media post from Hull, depicting Carvalho as a contestant on Blind Date, suggested both Leeds United and Southampton were among the clubs eager to secure his services.

Carvalho did not come cheap and the deal, including a loan fee and wages, will exceed £500,000. Hull have already suggested they would be interested in turning the loan into a permanent transfer this summer, but committing to a Championship project is unlikely to appeal to the player. Hull’s only chance of keeping Carvalho, you suspect, would be an improbable promotion.

GO DEEPER

Fabio Carvalho, the latest example of young talent who moved to a big club too early

There will be no rush to decide on the next step for a youngster with time on his side. The summer exit from Liverpool of Jurgen Klopp brings the promise of fresh starts across the Anfield squad and the likelihood is that Carvalho will be given opportunities during pre-season under a new head coach. Clean slates all round, a stage to press claims to build on the 21 appearances he made last season.

There are three more years remaining on a contract signed in 2022, but the competition for places back at Anfield remains fierce. Another loan, perhaps to the continent or a Premier League club, might be considered the most logical next step.

Carvalho’s stock, though, is back on the rise.

(Top photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Adblock test (Why?)

Players try to adopt cool, calm exteriors during a title race. If you ask them probing questions in pre- or post-match interviews, they will say they are simply “focused on the next game”.

But when things are going to wire, as it is with Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of this season’s Premier League, what is going on in their minds?

The Athletic has spoken to those who have been there, done it and fretted along the way. This is the story of how it is done — and how to cope with the pressure.

Although sports psychologist Dan Abrahams tells The Athletic that the important thing for players is to focus on what they can control, that is much easier said than done. “Literally every time I got in the car after training, I imagined lifting the trophy,” Robert Huth says. “It was just my crazy little brain thinking about the ifs, buts and maybes.”

The German was part of the Premier League’s greatest upset, when Leicester City won the 2015-16 title against all odds. “Your mind starts predicting the future,” he says. “You can’t help but think about the end game.”

Leicester retained top spot from mid-January onwards and realised that dream — but others around Huth and his team-mates played a key role.

“I always felt like the staff — including Claudio Ranieri, who was brilliant — knew what was going on in our heads,” he says. “They let us dream but they also brought us back down to earth and set the tone when it was time to work. We weren’t arrogant to think we could do it, but you can’t help thinking about the best outcome. It’s human nature.”

Huth with the Premier League trophy (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Alan Shearer — who won the title with Blackburn Rovers in 1995 — said in his recent column for The Athletic on the mental pressures of the title race that players are economical with the truth.

“They’ll tell us they have absolutely no interest in what the other teams are doing. Let me tell you something: it’s bulls***.”

Huth agrees. Especially when it comes to the order in which teams play. “It makes a massive difference,” he says. “When you’re in a tight race, it’s all-consuming. All you think about is your opposition. What are they doing? When are they kicking off?”

In the end, Leicester, who only lost three league games all season, were handed the title when Tottenham Hotspur blew a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 at Chelsea. The team watched together that night and along the way.

“I made a real point of watching the other games, be it Spurs or Arsenal (who finished as runners-up). I wanted them to lose, make no mistake about it. I remember watching the full 90 minutes of Liverpool against Spurs with Kasper Schmeichel and Danny Simpson and all we wanted was for Spurs to lose. They ended up getting a point. I was sitting there going, ‘Jesus, we could have done with them losing to give a bit more breathing space’.”

The reaction was more important, though. “We always managed to find something positive when something went against you,” he says.

“That’s key for these guys now. There will be a twist along the way, it’s not just going to be straight up for any team, so they have to find a positive.”

When Arsenal thought they had blown it in back in the 1988-89 season after losing to Derby County and drawing with Wimbledon, some players tried to avoid updates on Liverpool’s 5-1 hammering of West Ham United. Paul Merson went out for a curry but couldn’t resist calling team-mate Perry Groves. Lee Dixon’s dinner in Hertfordshire came with service from a gloating Liverpudlian. “The waiter came and told me at the end, ‘You’ve got to beat us 2-0 now… it’s not going to happen, is it?’,” he says in 89, Amy Lawrence’s book about that season. “And I went, ‘No’.”

Michael Thomas famously had other ideas when it was ‘up for grabs’ in the final minute at Anfield.

Defining head-to-head games on the final day of the season are rare, but clashes between title contenders earlier in the season provide a huge opportunity to deal a mental blow. “Leicester at White Hart Lane,” says Tottenham defender Ben Davies, recalling the 1-0 defeat at White Hart Lane in January 2016. “That’s the one I look back on. If we’d won that game things might’ve been a bit different because the gap after that (seven points) meant they were always that one step away.

“At the time people were like, ‘Oh (Leicester aren’t) going to be able to keep this up’. When they beat us we were like, ‘Oh… they’re in the mix now. This is a serious contender’.”

Davies trying to block Huth’s winning header at White Hart Lane in January 2016 (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Leicester’s results were strong, but the pressure showed inside the dressing room in different ways.

“It got a bit more quiet,” says Huth. “Normally changing rooms are buzzy with the music pumping, everyone’s relaxed and having a bit of a joke. Towards the last few games, people were a little more within themselves.”

The high stakes were having an effect. “I went through my routine even more: what to do, who to mark and where to be on set pieces and other situations. I knuckled down. It intensified,” Huth says. “You don’t want to be the guy who lets down your team-mates because you were a little bit lazy or you forgot to be in a certain position.”

Shearer has written about “walking around with a constant, irritating companion” when he competed for titles with Blackburn and Newcastle United. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, it’s right there with you, chirping away,” he says. “There’s no hiding place from that piercing, nagging voice forever reminding you exactly what’s at stake.

“At Blackburn, every setback would fuel that little voice: ‘Oh my god, we’ve f***ed it, we’ve messed up, game over’.

The former England captain admitted that when it came down to the final games of the season, that little voice “was more like a blaring scream”. It meant he couldn’t sleep. “After games, my brain wouldn’t stop whirring, replaying everything I’d done or could have done. You go to bed and it infiltrates your brain. You toss and turn because sleep doesn’t come.

“I would catch myself doing rudimentary maths, working out all the possible outcomes and permutations. Burning up all that emotional energy was exhausting.”

Shearer’s strike partner at Ewood Park, Chris Sutton, was on the same wavelength on and off the field. “I never played with a footballer who doesn’t care,” he said in a recent BBC interview. “In title run-ins, some players mask it and portray an attitude like they don’t care, but everybody does — deeply. It’s all you think about. You don’t sleep well.

“If things weren’t going well (in a rival’s match), you get up and go to the toilet and think that by the time you come back something would have changed. Just change something — make a cup of tea, go outside, just change the routine. It obviously has no impact at all.”

There’s science behind it. “The closer you get to ‘D-Day’ in a title race, as Shearer says, the volume of that critical voice inside your head with unhelpful, negative emotions will turn up,” says Abrahams, a leading sports psychologist who has worked with elite players. “There’s a great deal of things that are out of your control. Control is a prime source of stress response.”

Shearer won the Premier League with Blackburn (Getty Images)

It doesn’t just have an impact off the field. “It delivers a lot of performance anxiety,” Abrahams says. “Not only do you have an inner voice that can distract, slow your anticipation and damage your awareness — it also impacts your physical functioning.

“Basic things like your first touch, your ability to close, see and find space or get on the end of crosses go. It plays on perception and physical coordination, so it’s an enormous challenge for players.”

So how do you guard against that anxiety? “Take players’ minds away from outcomes,” says Abrahams. “Be less pressurised on themselves around performance, but much more in tune with the controllable process they’ve got to execute.

“A striker might think, ‘I’ve got to score, it’s the run-in’. Take their mind away from that and focus on things that help them score like runs and movement, things they can control. Specific, controllable, positive plays or cues.”

But mental fortitude needs work. “(Teams need to) put these in place before any kind of pressurised situation at the back end of the season,” he says. “My argument when I sit in front of a manager: this starts in pre-season.

“Players themselves become the most powerful psychologists and this is what needs to be trained all season to reinforce the messages across the team.”

Abrahams also works with golfers, as a former pro himself, but it’s different to football. Only when taking set pieces — inherently individual moments — is there time to stop, focus on your routine, a point on the ball and your breathing. “Football works in seconds, but the brain works in milliseconds, so the brain trumps football for speed every time.

“When people say, ‘Football is so quick, how can it be a psychological sport?’, I would argue that football is as psychological (as golf), if not more so, because if you go missing as a player, that’s going to make an enormous difference to your team’s ability to execute a tactical plan.”

While Abrahams extols the virtue of creating “great leaders”, the ultimate aim for that team, according to Abrahams, is “a shared mental model” combining game plan and mindset. “What do we do under pressure? We’re dominant. We’re relentless. We’re focused. We’re confident. We’re calm. Action-based words that we want to embody as a team with physical cues, self-talk and body language.”

Controlling the voices in your head is one thing, team performances are another — but what happens when rival managers try to influence you with mind games? You certainly want your manager to take the sting out of the situation.

In the build-up to his famous “Love it” rant, Kevin Keegan advised his players to keep calm and carry on. He stopped interviews and their regular Monday lunch meet for pasta and beers to avoid bumping into journalists.

Then he blew his top after a key win at Leeds and took Sir Alex Ferguson’s bait. Ferguson had accused opponents of trying harder against Manchester United in the title race.

“We were just, like, ‘What has he done?!’,” recalls former Newcastle centre-back Steve Howey. “He is telling us not to give anything away and he has lost the plot. We were all wondering what they’d make of that at Old Trafford. We were naive and Kevin was naive as well. That said, we probably loved him even more for how he reacted. He wore his heart on his sleeve and we wanted to win it more for him.”

Howey (left of Keegan) said the Newcastle players couldn’t believe Keegan’s rant (Stu Forster/Allsport/Getty Images)

Newcastle faltered after that as Manchester United claimed the title by four points. Ferguson tried similar the season before when Blackburn held a six-point advantage, suggested they would need to do a ‘Devon Loch’ — a racehorse that led the 1956 Grand National but fell on the final straight — to be caught.

Dalglish’s response? “Isn’t that an expanse of water in Scotland?”

Shearer was grateful for Dalglish’s approach: “In those circumstances, it helped to have Kenny as our manager. He had seen it and done it at Liverpool and had dealt with Fergie’s mind-games. His deadpan demeanour helped drain pressure away from us.”

Ferguson’s words still cut through. “We were all listening and chatting about it in the dressing room and he knew that; knew how it would have pressed our buttons and wound us up, getting under your skin,” says Shearer. “He was a master of the art.”

United’s 1-1 draw at West Ham ultimately allowed Blackburn to claim the title despite losing 2-1 at Liverpool.

Blackburn, like Leicester, went against a school of thought established by the late leading psychologist Albert Bandura.”He spent his life researching this and he would say past experiences are your number one source of self-belief,” explains Abrahams. “If you’ve done it in the past, it demonstrates you can do it again. It’s a very simplistic way of looking at it because clearly teams win and lose, but it does help them.”

City will lean on that as they go for four in a row this season. It wasn’t like that in 2011-12 when they relished taking on the establishment.

“I was watching everything, absolutely everything,” Micah Richards, who played 29 of City’s league games that season, said in an interview with The Athletic in 2022. “I read everything, too. We used to love it. ‘He’s (Ferguson) at it again’. ‘Noisy neighbours’. We loved all that. We didn’t come out and do many interviews. It was all respectful. But in the changing room, we would say to ourselves, ‘We’re better than these’.

“We just had the edge of… not caring, not worrying. (Manager) Roberto Mancini knew exactly what he was doing, too. Against Fergie, he was just fearless.”

Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest cared little for reputation when they won the top division as a promoted side in 1977-78 and followed it up with back-to-back European Cup victories.

“He was a psychologist,” says Martin O’Neill, part of that all-conquering team. “He believed that time away from the football club was as important as time at the football club. You were expending an awful lot of energy during a game — physically and psychologically.

“Clough said bring your passports in on a Monday and you’ll be away until Thursday. We loved it.”

This season, Arsenal’s winter break to Dubai led to 10 wins from league 11 games after just one win in five. This was a page from Clough’s book. “We formed relationships and a camaraderie,” says O’Neill. “Show me a winning side and they’ll have a decent camaraderie. Show me a losing side and the chances are they’re fighting with each other.”

But sometimes the fight to stay in the starting line-up, mixed with a title race, inhibits rational thought. “It’s tunnel vision,” says Robert Snodgrass, who won three promotions during his career, including with Leeds United in 2010. He says longer-term ankle issues followed as a result.

“The right thing to do would have been to step aside. Was my ankle more important than promotion? I lost the ability to decide and had 10 to 12 years of ankle issues trying to chase the objective or promotion.

“I had this mindset that I needed to do something long term, try to stay in the team, how you’re portrayed in the team, be a good team-mate… it’s tunnel vision.

“When you’re chasing a title, you’re completely obsessed. It can change your life, your family’s life, everybody else around you, your team-mates, the staff, people at the club… it’s a hell of an obsession.

“You want to be successful, but nobody speaks about the pitfalls if you lose or it doesn’t happen.”

(Top photos: Getty Images)

Adblock test (Why?)