West Ham’s performance at Anfield did not go without praise yesterday from a very unexpected source: Liverpool’s head coach Arne Slot was full of praise for one performance in particular which had more than a whiff of flirtation about it.
Reported any fan site thisisanfield.com, “Liverpool are known to admire West Ham forward Mohammed Kudus and may be telling that Arne Slot praised a player who has a release clause this summer.”
Kudus was well known to be flirting with Liverpool himself in the Lopetegui-inspired dark days – the player was reportedly demanding his agent – his brother – get him out of east London to – anywhere – but preferably Liverpool.
As the report continues, Slot wasn’t the only one batting his eyes at Mohammed Kudus:
“I can name you one or two players that could easily have played with us today,” Slot told his post-match press conference, with Kudus and Lucas Paqueta in mind.
The head coach labelled the Ghanaian “almost uncontrollable” in his interview with Sky Sports while, speaking to BBC Sport, Van Dijk said: “I think Paqueta and Kudus were making a lot of good things happen for them.”
Paqueta of course is ‘unsellable’ with the damoclean sword of the FA enquiry still hanging over his head, so all points to ‘come hither’ comments made for the benefit of the Ghanaian.
Not quite “tapping up” – but in many other instances coaches have deliberately refrained from commenting on players who weren’t their own. Not so Arne Slot.
£85million and we cannot stop them talking to him tal of £40/45million then we can very well stop them talking to him or anyone else at that sort of price
But we have the option to ask for release clause because then they have to pay us in one payment and his release clause is only open for a month