At the latter end of 1992, Queen Elizabeth II reflected on the year past, “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis'”.
Arne Slot will surely be experiencing similar emotions when reflecting upon the 2025/26 season. After exceeding all expectations during his first season as Liverpool FC Head Coach, and delivering a 20th League Championship, season 2024/25 must feel a dim & distant memory.
Taking over from Jurgen Klopp might not have appealed to all coaches. Yes, he inherited a squad which had been replenished during the Summer of 2023, but he also had the unenviable task of following Liverpool’s greatest modern day Manager.
Klopp had reignited a sleeping (and often misfiring) giant of English & European football and turned doubters into believers, utilising his own brand of gegenpress to entertain the Anfield faithful, whilst also adding Premier League & Champions League victories to the trophy cabinet.
Klopp completely understood the proud, working class roots on Merseyside and integrated himself into the community, ensuring fans thought of him as one of their own. Not an easy man to follow…but Arne Slot appeared to take to it like a duck to water.
The Liverpool FC owners (Fenway Sports Group – FSG) must have been delighted with the Slot appointment and the process overseen by Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes. After Klopp’s departure in the Summer of 2024, LFC added only one player (Enrico Chiesa) to a squad who had finished 3rd the previous season, and their new Head Coach guided them to a Premier League title. Slot didn’t hit the ground running, he had been fired out of a cannon.
Slot had worked wonders with the squad he inheritied from Klopp, and at times during the 2024/25 season he was lauded as a tactical genius masterminding victories over Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid & Bayer Leverkusen. The 4-0 thumping of Bayer Leverkusen must have felt particularly satisfying as Leverkusen Coach, Xabi Alonso, had been rumoured as FSG’s number one choice to replace Klopp before he ruled himself out of contention.
However, the Summer of 2025 is currently looking like a backwards step at best. Some events, such as the tragic death of Diogo Jota, can neither be predicted nor prepared for. Everyone deals with grief in their own personal way, and whilst Slot was applauded for the way in which he managed such a devastating event, the knock on effects for some of the players will probably never be fully understood.
Slot had inherited contract issues with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk & Mohamed Salah. Alexander-Arnold had a fantastic 2024/25 season, but decided to depart for Real Madrid and his absence has been huge this season. Injuries to Conor Bradley & Jeremie Frimpong have led to Dominic Szoboszlai & Curtis Jones playing rightback on several occasions during this campaign, and this unsettled position has also contributed to an alarming decline in performance from Mohamed Salah.
The 2024/25 season had seen Salah produce record breaking figures for goals & assists as he fired Liverpool to their 20th League Championship, and as a result he was offered a new two year contract. At the time I don’t think anyone questioned if Salah could still perform at the top level, but his decline this season has been dramatic.
At times this season I had found myself getting frustrated with Salah’s inability to dribble past a full back and create chances or score goals. I watched a re-run of all his goals & assists during the 2024/25 season as a comparison for this season; whilst racking up 34 goals & 23 assists during his record breaking season, only once did he genuinely go past an opponent and leave him behind. All other goals & assists were produced by creating a little space for himself and 99% of the time cutting back onto his left foot and delivering pin point precision passes, crosses or shots; it was a joy to behold.
So how do we explain this season? Salah contributed very little from a defensive perspective last season, but whilst he was winning games with his incredible attacking output, the juice was worth the squeeze. Roll on six months and suddenly Salah is offering very little from an attacking or defensive perspective, his anti-Slot outbursts have helped no-one and we now see Salah leaving on a free at the end of the season.
I believe Salah’s drop in form has been an unfortunate by-product of Slot’s attempts to integrate Florian Wirtz into his favoured No. 10 role. With Wirtz occupying the traditional No. 10 role he brings bodies into the areas Salah used to drift into when cutting in from the left. Defenders knew that’s what he wanted to do, but they still couldn’t stop him. There’s a changing of the guard taking place at LFC, and Wirtz is seen as the future.
Liverpool spent £446m during the Summer of 2025, a record for an English club, and whilst they recouped a lot of the spend by selling players, the transition within the squad has resulted in poor performances on the field this season. Slot has been criticised on several occasions for the slow pace of play exhibited by the current team, but it’s not massively different from last season. It was good enough to win a League Championship at that point.
Liverpool are not known as a club likely to chop and change Managers, especially during the season. Slot has a huge game vs PSG this evening, and I don’t think his future should be decided by the outcome of one game, but the pressure is undoubtedly building as a result of the perceived under performance this season.
Should Slot be given at least another season to bed in the new players and implement his subtle change in tactics? Will Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes both stick around to oversee the transition into a new Slot led era for Liverpool? FSG have backed Edwards, Hughes & Slot with a transfer kitty Jurgen Klopp could only dream of. If Hughes & Edwards pull the plug on Slot, how does that reflect on their initial decision to appoint him? Irrespective of the result vs PSG this evening I would very much doubt Slot leaves before the end of the season. After that….the availability of Xabi Alonso may complicate matters moving forward.