Liverpool's Rocky Season Under Arne Slot: A Manager in Jeopardy
The mood around Anfield has curdled. What began as a bold new era under Arne Slot now feels like a season staggering towards an awkward reckoning.
After Liverpool’s limp Champions League quarter-final exit to Paris Saint-Germain, the narrative hardened quickly: Slot might not survive the summer. The 4-0 FA Cup capitulation at Manchester City in early April only poured petrol on the fire, prompting the Daily Mail to declare that the Dutchman was “sleepwalking towards the sacking.”
Inside the club, though, the message is very different.
Board backs Slot – for now
According to David Ornstein, Liverpool’s hierarchy remains aligned behind its long-term plan. Slot, tied to a contract until 2027, is expected to be backed through this rocky spell, regardless of whether Liverpool cling on to a top-four finish or not.
That is not a small caveat. Liverpool currently sit fifth, four points ahead of sixth-placed Chelsea, and the run-in looks unforgiving. The Merseyside derby at Everton on Sunday sets the tone for a brutal stretch: Crystal Palace at home, then three season-defining clashes in quick succession – away to Manchester United and Aston Villa, with Chelsea visiting Anfield in between. The campaign closes at Brentford, seventh and still with European ambitions of their own.
This is not a schedule for the faint-hearted, nor for a manager under scrutiny.
From title high to sobering reality
Slot arrived in 2024 as the man tasked with following a legend. Succeeding Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool is as close as English football gets to walking on holy ground. Remarkably, the Dutchman’s first season delivered the ultimate validation: he guided the club to the league title.
The second act started in the same key. Five straight league wins, a team playing with conviction, a fanbase beginning to believe that the post-Klopp transition might be smoother than anyone dared to imagine.
Then the gears slipped.
Liverpool tumbled out of the EFL Cup early. Their FA Cup run ended with that brutal 4-0 dismantling at City. Hopes of retaining the Premier League crown evaporated weeks ago. The Champions League became the last remaining avenue for silverware and, with it, a shield for Slot against growing criticism.
PSG closed that door with clinical finality. Two legs, two 2-0 defeats, and a campaign that ended not with fury but with a kind of resigned shrug. The performance in Paris was flat; the return at Anfield, no better. Yet the loudest debate centred not on tactics or intensity, but on one selection call up front.
Isak gamble backfires
Slot surprised almost everyone by starting Alexander Isak in the second leg, throwing in a striker who had only just returned from a three-month injury lay-off. On the bench sat Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo – proven European operators, both capable of turning a tight tie with a single moment.
The logic, Slot later explained, was rooted in conditioning. He preferred to start Isak rather than risk introducing him later, potentially into extra time, when the Swede might have been running on empty after such a long absence. He even outlined the internal plan: play Isak for 45 minutes, assess him at half-time, then maybe stretch him by another five or ten minutes.
In the end, there was no extra time, no late surge. Isak drifted on the periphery, largely anonymous, and Slot hooked him at the interval for Gakpo. By then, PSG were in control and Liverpool were chasing ghosts.
The decision drew immediate fire. Former Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann did not bother to sugarcoat his reaction on Sky. For him, the idea of starting a player who had not featured for three months in a Champions League quarter-final against what he called the best team in Europe – while simultaneously admitting concerns over the player’s ability to last into extra time – bordered on the absurd.
Hamann said he had held the “utmost respect” for Slot but had “never heard of anything like this before,” questioning whether such a call had ever been made in the history of the competition.
A season on the brink
This is where Liverpool now stand: a manager publicly backed by the board, privately dissected by pundits, and relentlessly judged by a fanbase that has tasted the highest standards under Klopp and expects them to be maintained.
Slot’s first year brought a title. His second is veering towards a scrap for Champions League qualification via a newly opened fifth berth. The margin for error is shrinking, the fixtures are unforgiving, and the noise around his decisions grows louder with every misstep.
The club insists he is safe. The table, the schedule and the mood around Anfield will decide how long that assurance holds.
