Arne Slot

Melissa Reddy article "Arne Slot is a Premier League title winner. He is also no longer the right man for Liverpool
Fenway Sports Group, we have been told, do not believe the head coach who won the league has simply disappeared. The conditions for that triumph have - he is no longer the right fit…"

When Liverpool leaned into trusting data, making it a central tenet of their operation, the objective was to oust tradition and emotion as primary decision drivers with validated, evidence-based strategies.

In that context, the discourse around Arne Slot is particularly illuminating. The loudest, most repeated reason for the head coach to remain in charge is the league title he delivered during his debut season. It is generally accompanied by some variation of ‘Liverpool are not a sacking club,’ along with a tour through why the men in the dugout mean more at Anfield.
While those points are true, they are weaved in tradition and emotion. So what would the data, and more pertinently Will Spearman’s algorithm that evaluates coaching performance, reveal about a desperate, deflating campaign?

How would it file, factoring in mitigations, a drop of 25 points after the single most expensive transfer window in football history?

Spearman, Liverpool’s excellent director of research, built a model to comb through a wide range of metrics that comprehensively analyses the merits of a manager. Two years ago, we were told how Slot showed up as the ‘top of the top’ when the tool was used to unearth Jurgen Klopp’s successor.

The Dutchman’s profile had ticked all the core boxes: his style of play wasn’t a dramatic departure from what the squad were already used to and supporters expected, he had overperformed relative to means with Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar resulting in one league title - it could have been two if not for a Covid-forced cancellation of the Eredivisie, plus he had a track record of individually improving players.

Under Slot, Feyenoord possessed a strong record of availability through low injury rates. A trend was spotted at both his former clubs which showed he had the ability to harness the potential of a team and improve it.

When Liverpool met with Slot in April 2024, the club had slid from first to third in the league. They surrendered quadruple ambitions after being dispatched from the FA Cup and Europa League by Manchester United and Atalanta respectively.

The squad were physically taxed, and also emotionally spent trying to give Klopp the silverware-lined goodbye he so greatly deserved. They were a golden group, though, and the effort to reach the penultimate month of the season with history still in their hands should not be erased.

The players needed tweaks not a tanking of everything they had known so Slot, given the data findings, rightly appealed. “I think the way Liverpool ‘scouted’ me, they were looking for, not the exact same type [as Klopp], but I think when something has been successful with a certain way of playing you would like to extend this or to go on with this,” Slot told in-house media during his first interview.

“There is change but a lot of things are still the same as well. I think the players are still the same, which is probably the most important thing because, of course, we as managers sometimes tend to think that we have a lot of influence, which we can have, but in the end it comes down to the players…

“Jürgen left the club in a really good place, left the team in a really good place. I think we have a lot of quality and the way they played last season was already impressive, so we are going to build from there.”
Slot took an exceptionally good base and made it greatly effective. Having initially wanted to arrow in on Mohamed Salah’s defensive work, he was flexible enough to listen to the forward and platform him instead, with the reward being an individual season for the ages through 47 goal involvements; the record for a 38-game campaign.

Slot helped empower this in a variety of ways, like having an extra attacker inside the opposition half in the 4-2-3-1, easing the attacker’s workload off the ball.

The use of Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones in dragging centre-backs out of position allowed Salah to hurt opponents in behind.

Alexander-Arnold operated as a more traditional right-back for greater defensive stability, but he was also given license to move centrally. This prompted more one-on-ones for Salah while also guarding against counter threats.

Alexander-Arnold would also either overlap to create space for him to cut inside or invert to pull markers away, offering the room to drive at them. If Salah opted for the former, he often sent in a healthy supply of back-post crosses to Cody Gakpo, who thrived in his familiar left spot.

Luis Diaz, meanwhile, enjoyed his most productive season at the club through the middle in another smart Slot tweak.

It was inspired to repurpose Ryan Gravenberch as a six, in a pivot with Alexis Mac Allister, and have Szoboszlai operating ahead of the pair. It allowed Liverpool to create, breathe with the ball, and control the opposition’s transition.

Calming the approach with less risk led to fewer exertions and injuries: Liverpool had just 37 in 2024-25, with only 816 days lost to them.
Slot, against expectation, delivered a league title in his debut season with smart nips and tucks, aligned with savvy substitutions.

He was also understated, which was welcome because an imitation of Klopp would have gone down abysmally with the fanbase.

The respect and appreciation Slot had for everything his predecessor had built and bequeathed to him was seen as a green flag. This wasn’t someone tearing through an identity supporters loved and immersed themselves in, he was watering it.

Winning the title was achieved with the same squad, bar Federico Chiesa who hardly kicked a ball anyway, that went so close to a quadruple.

Slot, as Spearman’s algorithm suggested, was perfect for the situation Liverpool were in.

That was then. It would be surprising if the algorithm found him ‘top of the top’ for where the club are now, and their required direction of travel after a season which feels a betrayal not just sylistically, but to the very essence of defiance and courage that had defined the team for a decade.

If we rightly credit Slot for fine-tuning the tools at his disposal to lift the Premier League trophy, he has to be held responsible for failing to get the good - nevermind the best - out of any player this season.

Szoboszlai has been the only consistent performer, a one-man machine overcoming a mountain of structural issues despite carrying career-high minutes in his legs.

Meanwhile, Liverpool’s guaranteed scorer, premier playmaker and reference point - the man that super-powered the title win - was isolated, moved further away from goal with five different right-backs behind him in the opening games, and then dropped. This empowered the nonsense narrative Salah’s legs had gone and that he is the problem, which will be analysed in a separate article as it requires a wealth of space.

In the meantime, to summarise from a European sporting director: ‘When you misuse your best player and you do not manage the situation properly, you don’t only lose him. The dressing room will start having doubts, it will show on the pitch, and then you lose the fans. When you arrive there, it’s too big a mess to continue.’

Slot himself admitted players have more influence than whomever is in the dugout. If you cannot use them correctly, if you do not get their complete buy-in, if you’re given the most expensive ones and have the biggest wage bill but are sitting on 59 points after 36 games coupled with seriously embarrassing cup exits, there is a major problem.

Some of the sharpest data minds in sport, Liverpool’s former director of research Ian Graham among them, have always warned that assessing a manager is complicated because players have a direct influence on their metrics.

And as such, a high turnover of them, can swing the storyline. The tale has not been a pretty one for Liverpool, who spent circa £446 million ahead of this season, yet face more extensive and expensive work in the market.

There has been a desperate attempt to reshape the conversation around the profiles recruited in the summer to defend Slot’s damaging out-of-possession structure and sterile play with the ball, but the only consistent criticism of the club’s business at the time was the failure to get Marc Guehi over the line.

Some who were claiming it would go down as “the best window in Premier League history” are now insisting the head coach was not armed with the correct attributes to properly enact his philosophy.

During the final stanza of last season, Slot noted opponents were stifling Liverpool’s approach. And as early as February 2025, he revealed the transfer plan was set after working with recruitment to assess every position in the squad.

The head-spinning outlay on more technical players was to counteract the popular low-block-is-life obstacle.

Liverpool were supremely confident about the work done. A revisiting of the inside stories produced at the time sketches a club in full swagger, who were talking about dominance not transition. Analysis has been kind due to circumstances.

However, no matter how much it is danced around or which way it is sliced, the evidence suggests Slot has struggled to mould a team, an identity, and a journey to believe in.

There doesn’t need to be a reading between the lines of what the senior players have been saying throughout the season about “togetherness,” or “standards” because there has been enough proof on the pitch. “I’m a player and a fan and I’ve not seen it like this for a long, long time,” Jones said back in November.

“I haven’t experienced a team playing this bad.” The Scouser would continue to endure that feeling. Even a notoriously patient, measured, sympathetic match-going base have reached their limit. When that happens, there is no salvation.

There have been mitigations for Liverpool’s miserable season. Injuries have been severe and plentiful, leading to a situation where the club’s three biggest buys - Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak - have spent less than 120 minutes on the pitch together. When available, only the France international so cruelly struck with an Achilles setback, has properly provided a window to his talent.

The loss of beloved Diogo Jota can never be truly measured, not on an emotional scale nor any other. While no-one at Liverpool has used grief as a cover for poor performances, it is natural that his death has had a deep impact on the squad and staff.

It might take years for them to understand, navigate, and be able to articulate its individual and collective effect.

During pre-season, Liverpool’s training centre was a space for remembrance, grief and reconnecting more than just testing physical parameters.

Slot guided the squad and staff through an unimaginably hard situation with the utmost care and consideration. He is a good man and a good coach.

While that is different to being the right one for what the club needs moving forward, the vitriol against him is totally unwarranted. Slot is trying, but before the switch to Merseyside, he had never lost two league games in a row, so there is no familiarity steering out of turbulence.
That has shown in his decision-making on the pitch, but off it too. It was bizarre for Slot to respond with a loaded “standards are not only in the gym” comment in response to Salah wanting Liverpool to have benchmark-setters moving forward.

It was made to look even worse by a terribly passive showing against Chelsea. A side that had lost six on the spin, who were there for the taking were instead encouraged by the hosts dropping off them and having just three attempts on target. Liverpool were second best in the duels, and the first opponents this season Chelsea have outrun. The standards were definitely not on the pitch.

“I don’t think it’s fair that anyone could ever think I tell my players to back off, drop deep and not to press,” Slot said in the aftermath of a draw that felt like a defeat.

Has someone else been repeatedly setting up the team in a mid-block, with an extra man in defence and the opposition having numerical superiority centrally to cut through at will? Is he suggesting the players have been doing the opposite to his commands for pretty much a year?

Liverpool have been defeated in 18 matches across all competitions this season. They have conceded 73 goals, allowing more in than they have scored in the opening 15 minutes of games.

Liverpool have been obliging to the most embattled of teams: Calum McFarlane‘s Chelsea, Igor Tudor’s Tottenham, Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United, bottom-of-the-league Wolves…

The defending champions - that description feels a lie which should only underscore the severity of the depreciation - have taken two points from the available 24 away from home against teams in the top half of the table.

Liverpool have “a pattern that we concede ridiculous goals,” to quote Slot. They repeat mistakes, they’ve never conceded a higher tally of set-piece goals in a Premier League season, and they are routinely less than their sum of their parts.

Anfield is no longer a fortress. Liverpool are no longer a team to fear. They are deferential: see the approach against Paris Saint-German. A side that was so hard to beat now seem beaten before they’ve even kicked a ball.

Liverpool are structurally defunct and have been a soul-destroying watch for how far they’ve deviated from the aggressive, attacking blur that also refused to be outworked.

Slot is not a coach outperforming his means. His style, furthered by the profile he requested in the summer, is a dramatic departure.

He has failed to harness the potential of this team, harmed its most consistent source of goals by falling out with Salah, and has fumbled in extracting the best out of anyone.

Trying to play Isak and Mac Allister into match sharpness earlier in the season to the detriment of results, momentum and confidence, is part of a litany of misjudgements.

Yes, even the managerial greats like Pep Guardiola and Klopp endure off-seasons. They make mistakes, they struggle with injuries. The difference is their body of work, the unwavering belief in their methodology, the finding of solutions, and the obvious signs of light during the dark times carry them through.

When Slot was asked if he can get the fans back onside, he offered: “If we can have the summer that we are planning to have, then I’m 100 percent convinced that we will be a different team next season than we are now; different in terms of results, different in how things look.

“But it’s not always that simple, because sometimes you know what you have to do, but it’s not always possible to also get exactly what you want.”

So Liverpool require the perfect window to become a team to believe in and identify with again?

Was delivering that kind of business not what the club felt they pulled off last summer?

To that end, all fingers shouldn’t be pointing solely at Slot. The sporting director Richard Hughes, and FSG’s pedigreed CEO of Football Michael Edwards, share responsibility for Liverpool being a non-entity in all competitions this season.

Transition was an inevitability at some point with players ageing and some seeking fresh challenges. Did there have to be so many changes so soon?

Was it a result of overconfidence from securing the title? How much of it was influenced by an irritation of the view ‘the league was won with a Jurgen Klopp team?’

What was thinking behind giving Salah a new contract for £400,000 per week if the plan was to immediately replace his output with the summer business?

Having briefed that window was a once-off in terms of how much needed to be addressed, and such a spending spree would not be necessary again, how are Liverpool in a position for major surgery again?

When Klopp had integrated three new starters for three consecutive seasons, it was internally considered a high number and risky even in an established set-up with an esteemed manager. So why are there more now, with a greater number to come in a considerably less stable and assured circumstance?

Why do the drops of information against Xabi Alonso centre around his use of a back three at Bayer Leverkusen when he employed a back four at Real Sociedad B and Real Madrid?

While there are doubts around the 44-year-old’s coaching ceiling as he’s in the embryonic stages of his career and he is not the slam dunk portrayed, is part of the issue also the popularity he would automatically command?

As succession planning is constantly worked on, what characteristics would the club be looking for now in their next head coach?

If Luis Enrique became available, would he be pursued?

Ribboning all of this, do Hughes and Edwards plan to stay beyond the expiry of their contracts?

If not, what is the direction of Liverpool Football Club?

That we do not have the answer to these kind of questions is symptomatic of how a position of strength - of triumph - has turned into being very thankful for the inconsistency of other competitors for Champions League qualification.

Fingers crossed he's a goner.

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