What Arne Slot said to cause Jose Mourinho meltdown as Liverpool links continue

Arne Slot has previously made clear he is a man unafraid to speak his mind.

Slot, who is the current frontrunner to replace Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool manager, faced off against AS Roma with his Feyenoord side in the quarter-finals of last season's Europa League and was involved in a heated exchange with Jose Mourinho.

The two clubs had gone head-to-head in the previous year's Europa Conference League final and were paired up against each other once again last term as they both battled for a place in the last four of Europe's second-tier competition.

Stirring things up when asked if he had been watching many of Roma's matches in preparation for this two-legged tie, Slot responded: “Their style of football achieves results, but I prefer to watch Manchester City and Napoli. I’m very honest on that.”

PLAYER RATINGS: Darwin Nunez really bad but two others shocking against Everton

READ MORE: Liverpool get what they deserve for not fixing problem that has ruined title chances

Things went according to plan for Feyenoord in the first leg after achieving a 1-0 victory on home soil, though Roma got their revenge in the return fixture after winning 4-1 to progress to the semi-finals of the competition.

It became clear Slot's comments regarding Mourinho's style of play were used as motivation after the ex-Chelsea and Manchester United boss delivered the following message to his opposite number in the tunnel after overseeing a 4-2 aggregate victory: "You watch Napoli but you should watch us. You should watch us, not Napoli, not Napoli.”

Speaking to the media following this exchange, Mourinho refused to back down. “I was just telling him that instead of watching Napoli and Man City he should watch Roma because he didn’t study Roma well enough.”

There were some words of respect that followed, however, with Slot stating: "He apparently never heard that I also have a lot of respect for him as a trainer,” Slot said. “He wins an incredible amount of trophies.”

Adopting a similar stance, Mourinho added: "They have good players and a good coach.They are deserved [Eredivisie] champions and they fought hard against us. It was two great matches. They made it very difficult for us.”