Liverpool’s Arne Slot wary of Van Nistelrooy after duo’s Eredivisie battles

Arne Slot has said his experience of facing Ruud van Nistelrooy in the Netherlands, plus ­Liverpool’s ­brief drop-off against ­Tottenham, ensures Leicester will not be underestimated at Anfield on Boxing Day.

The Liverpool head coach was ­unable to beat Van Nistelrooy’s PSV when guiding Feyenoord to the ­Eredivisie title in 2022-23, drawing 2-2 at home and losing 4-3 away. PSV were one of only two teams to defeat Feyenoord in a season when Slot’s side won the league by seven points from their closest challengers from Eindhoven.

Van Nistelrooy has suffered two heavy defeats in succession after starting his Leicester reign with a win over West Ham and a draw against Brighton. Last weekend’s 3-0 home reverse against their fellow ­strugglers Wolves came on the day Liverpool strengthened their grip on the Premier League ­summit with a 6-3 rout of Spurs. Slot, ­however, insists there will be no complacency against a coach of Van Nistelrooy’s pedigree.

“I was expecting you to tell people over here that I lost once and drew once but you made it positive, saying that we won the league title, which was true,” he said. “Cody Gakpo was in his team, and I’m happy that he’s in my team when we face Ruud because Cody in both games I think he scored.

“Ruud is a very nice person, first of all. I met him once or twice. He did really well when he was at PSV. I think for the last one and a half years PSV have been on top of the league table but if you look at the second half of Ruud’s season, I think they didn’t lose any games at all. And PSV started buying a few more ­players than they did when he started working there. When he was there, Cody Gakpo and Noni Madueke were sold. But he still showed that he could compete for the title. Nice person, good mana­ger, did well at Man United as well. I’m ­looking forward to seeing him, ­especially if we win!”

Liverpool were rampant at ­Tottenham, moving four points clear at the top with a game in hand on ­second‑placed Chelsea, but Slot was unhappy about a sloppy period that allowed Ange Postecoglou’s team to score two late goals.

“Hopefully that’s a good thing about these 15 minutes,” he said. “That we must understand we ­cannot underestimate one minute in the ­Premier League because then we are not as good as we might think we are if we are on top of our game.”

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The Liverpool defenders Ibrahima Konaté and Conor Bradley will again be absent through injury.

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