What Arne Slot has been up to during Liverpool break – with trip to 5th-tier club

With Liverpool players starting their return to the AXA Training Centre on Tuesday, Arne Slot has himself travelled back to Merseyside following a trip to the Netherlands.

Slot welcomed the first of his players back for sessions in Kirkby on Tuesday, ahead of the visit of Chelsea in the Premier League on Sunday evening.

It comes after a busy international break for his first-team squad, with the majority of his senior players called up for duty around the world.

For Slot and his staff, the pause of domestic football gave an opportunity to recharge with another busy run of fixtures to come.

Liverpool’s head coach took the opportunity to return to his home in the Netherlands, with The Athletic‘s James Pearce reporting that Slot travelled with his family to Zwolle.

Slot was born in the village of Bergentheim but has for many years been based around 40 minutes away in the city of Zwolle – until making the move to England.

While he has now found a house in the north-west, he was back in more familiar surroundings during the break.

That included a trip to watch local side VV Heino face ONS Sneek in the Vierde Divisie, which is the fifth-tier of football in the Netherlands.

The 46-year-old took in a 3-2 loss for the hosts at the Sports Park De Kampen on Saturday night and is unlikely to have taken many pointers from their performance.

Though the break afforded Slot some much-needed downtime, there will also have been a focus on what has already unfolded for the Reds this season and what is yet to come.

Namely, that will have seen the head coach begin analysis of Sunday’s opponents, eager to avoid another defeat on the back of an international break.

Liverpool’s only loss so far under Slot came against Nottingham Forest in the first game after the September break, with the Reds producing a tired display at Anfield.

This time around, though, not only is there more time to prepare with kickoff against Chelsea not until 4.30pm on Sunday, but the likes of Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk have been able to return early after leaving their national teams over the weekend.

In other news, Slot has successfully poached another former Feyenoord colleague, with the head coach to add a familiar video analyst to his team.