Arne Slot could bring unusual habit to Liverpool and FPL managers will hate it

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp was at one time the darling of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers. His famed front three was the stuff of legend for fantasy football players, with very minimal rotation of his prolific star forwards.

That was contrasted to 'Pep Roulette', the name the FPL community has bestowed on Pep Guardiola's tendencies to tinker and tweak. The Manchester City manager continues to infuriate, dropping Phil Foden from the squad entirely in the latest outing.

As the years have gone by, Klopp has arguably drifted closer to Guardiola in this regard. But as evidenced by the recent spat when he was forced to watch from the bench for 75 minutes, Mohamed Salah has more or less been a banker to play throughout his time at Liverpool, earning hugely consistent FPL returns in that time.

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Likewise, even as Klopp has made excellent use of his squad, staples like Trent Alexander-Arnold have been fairly immune to rotation. Someone owning Salah, Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk in FPL for each of the last few seasons (fitness-permitting) won't have gone too far wrong.

So what will the potential appointment of Arne Slot change? Well, it seems he has one particular habit that won't go down especially well with FPL managers.

Slot is known to love wingers. That's no bad thing, of course, and the likes of Cody Gakpo and Luis Díaz could be ones to watch from an FPL perspective if they find new levels under the Dutchman.

But managers may well be put off any Liverpool wingers because of Slot's tendency to substitute them, sometimes en masse, around the hour mark. The 60-minute milestone is significant in FPL, as it's where the second appearance point and the clean sheet point are locked in, and earlier withdrawals are a source of major frustration.

"I asked Dennis (Te Kloese, the CEO) at the beginning of the season for a lot of wingers, because you can’t expect every winger to perform in every single game and outplay their opponents," Slot told The Athletic last summer. "So that’s why they are the players substituted most often."

He has been true to his word this season. Luka Ivanusec has been the stuff of FPL nightmares — at one point in the middle of the campaign, the left-winger played 45, 58, 10, 59, 54 and then 57 minutes in successive league matches.

It's not just him. Between Ivanusec, Igor Paixão and Yankubah Minteh, there have been just five occurrences of playing a full 90 minutes. Rotation is not unusual, but Slot's almost mechanical use of substitutions among his wingers sets him apart.

That trio have also combined for 20 goals and 13 assists, so it's clear that FPL managers would ideally want Slot wingers in their side when he comes to Liverpool. But working out who will start and who will stay on looks as though it could be something of a lottery.

Liverpool.com says: Even Salah, a must-own in FPL for so long, looks a little less appealing in light of Slot's preferences. Will the 31-year-old Egyptian really be getting full 90s with any kind of regularity? It's hard to see it.

Then again, Slot is inheriting a pretty great squad in terms of matching his tactical approach. Salah, Díaz, Gakpo, Diogo Jota and even Darwin Núñez could all provide options in wide areas, and FPL managers will be watching pre-season closely to see if anyone steps up as the primary source of goals.