Arne Slot has already identified four players around whom he wants to build his Liverpool team

Arne Slot has been confirmed as Liverpool’s new head coach this evening, and reports claim that he already knows the quartet around whom he wants to build his team at Anfield.

According to Chris Bascombe for The Telegraph, the club are eager to secure new contracts for Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mo Salah as a priority, in order to retain an ideal balance between experience in the squad and the evolution of youth.

The 45-year-old is also thought to have identified Darwin Nunez as a ‘critical’ player for the Reds and has named the Uruguayan as someone with whom he’s excited to work on Merseyside.

It comes as no surprise that Slot is determined to tie down the futures of Liverpool’s captain and vice-captain, as well as their goalscorer in chief, all of whom are approaching the final year of their respective contracts as things stand.

If the Reds can agree new deals for Van Dijk, Trent and Salah ahead of the start of next season, it’d represent a huge early win for the new head coach at Anfield.

Perhaps the most interesting snippet from that report is the 45-year-old’s depiction of Nunez as a core figure, amid recent rumours linking the 24-year-old with a potential move to Barcelona.

The Uruguayan hasn’t had the easiest of seasons at Liverpool, but his 18-goal tally was still a decent return, while he’s shown that he can be a bombastic match-winning centre-forwward who just needs to add more finesse to his game and be more clinical in front of goal.

Even though the appointment wasn’t officially confirmed until this evening, it’s been clear for a while now that Slot would be taking over from Jurgen Klopp, and it seems that he’s already given plenty of thought as to who he wants as the central pillars of the team which will now become his.