Liverpool supporters spent last season thinking Arne Slot could walk on water. On Friday night, they watched a side in the middle of a pitiful Premier League title defence stumble to humiliation at Villa Park, and the noise around the 47-year-old only grew louder.
The defeat intensified scrutiny on Slot at a moment when Liverpool’s decision-makers are still, for now, backing him to turn things around. But the results have made that support look increasingly fragile, especially with Liverpool slipping through a campaign that has not come close to matching the standards set a year ago.
That contrast is what has made the conversation so sharp. Last season, Slot arrived and immediately won over supporters who believed he had the answer to life after Jürgen Klopp. Now the mood has shifted fast, with every setback feeding the sense that Liverpool’s title defence has lost control before it has found any rhythm.
If the club were to change course, the list of alternatives is not as straightforward as it once looked. Xabi Alonso’s move to Chelsea may have taken away Liverpool supporters’ top choice, while Andoni Iraola will leave Bournemouth at the end of the ongoing campaign and is currently undecided on his next move. Bournemouth could still qualify for the Champions League this season, even potentially leapfrogging Liverpool, which only strengthens the case for the work Iraola has done there.
Bournemouth under Iraola have become a high-octane, attacking outfit, a style that has drawn notice well beyond the south coast. Liverpool have also felt the edge of the modern pressing game in recent seasons, and Mohamed Salah has said he has missed the gegenpressing style he had under Klopp. That makes any future change at Anfield more than a question of personality. It is a question of whether the club wants to double down on the intensity that defined its best years, or look for something different.
For now, though, the central fact is simpler: Liverpool’s season has gone badly enough that the manager has become the story. The club are still standing by Slot, but the next run of results will decide whether that backing buys him time or only delays a reckoning that now feels impossible to ignore.
