Beth LindopMay 5, 2026, 04:32 AM ETCloseBased in Liverpool, Beth Lindop is ESPN’s Liverpool correspondent and also covers the WSL and UWCL.Follow on XMultiple Authors
play1:03Nicol: Liverpool look ‘absolutely lost’ under Arne SlotSteve Nicol slams Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United and suggests Xabi Alonso as a replacement for Arne Slot.
play1:04Nicol: Liverpool defensively are a shamblesSteve Nicol slams Liverpool’s defensive display after their 3-2 defeat to Man United.
play1:51Slot: VAR decisions have gone against Liverpool all seasonArne Slot hits out at VAR after Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat against Manchester United in the Premier League.
Laurens can’t understand why Liverpool would stick with Slot (1:55)Julien Laurens explains why he doesn’t see Liverpool getting back to their best under Arne Slot. (1:55)
Nicol: Liverpool look ‘absolutely lost’ under Arne SlotSteve Nicol slams Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United and suggests Xabi Alonso as a replacement for Arne Slot.
Steve Nicol slams Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United and suggests Xabi Alonso as a replacement for Arne Slot.
Nicol: Liverpool defensively are a shamblesSteve Nicol slams Liverpool’s defensive display after their 3-2 defeat to Man United.
Slot: VAR decisions have gone against Liverpool all seasonArne Slot hits out at VAR after Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat against Manchester United in the Premier League.
Arne Slot hits out at VAR after Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat against Manchester United in the Premier League.
AGAINST: Liverpool’s title defence has been terrible
And so the cycle begins again. No sooner had the full-time whistle sounded at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon than yet another inquest into Liverpool’s troubles was launched on social media.
Considering the club’s latest defeat — a 3-2 loss at Manchester United — was their 19th of the season in all competitions, this is, by now, a familiar dance. Forensic analysis of each setback often yields the same talking points: misfiring forwards, a sluggish midfield and a disjointed defence are all contributing factors in Liverpool’s hugely underwhelming Premier League title defence.
But while a conflation of several issues has shaped the course of this tumultuous campaign, it is head coach Arne Slot who is more often than not painted as the primary villain.
“How can those supporting him still defend him?” one prominent Liverpool fan account asked its 144,000 followers on X, alongside a rap sheet of this season’s most damning statistics.
Losing twice to bitter rivals United in the league for the first time in a decade is one of the charges, as is suffering two top-flight defeats to Manchester City for the first time since the 1936-37 campaign.
For Slot, the cold, hard facts do not make for pleasant reading, although the aforementioned post makes no mention of the fact he led Liverpool to the Premier League title last term, nor does it highlight any of the mitigation — of which there has been plenty — for the Reds’ turbulent season.
Both of those factors will resonate with owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG), who have maintained their support for Slot throughout the many trials and tribulations of the past nine months and would like to give him the opportunity to prove he is still the man to lead Liverpool forward.
But, with every poor result — and every corresponding shaky performance — prompting a groundswell of discontent within the fanbase, are Liverpool’s decision-makers right to persist with the Dutchman beyond this season?
The most compelling case for Slot continuing as Liverpool’s head coach is a fairly simple one: he won the Premier League last season. With speculation over the future of City boss Pep Guardiola continuing to gain traction, there is a chance that Slot is the only Premier League-winning coach left in the division when the 2026-27 campaign gets underway in August.
While Slot’s detractors, including some within his own fanbase, might try to downplay the scale of that achievement, winning the title is no easy feat. Liverpool have only done so twice in the past 36 years, while the fact that Arsenal have struggled to fully shake off City in their pursuit of this season’s trophy — having finished second in each of the last three campaigns — is a testament to just how difficult it is to get over the line.
The argument that Slot won the title with Jürgen Klopp’s team also does not stand up to scrutiny, seeing as the general consensus was that Liverpool were destined for immediate decline following Klopp’s departure in the summer of 2024.
While the Dutchman has not been able to inspire his squad to reach similar heights this term, his track record of developing players is largely very good.
Nicol: Liverpool look ‘absolutely lost’ under Arne Slot
Again, this argument is a pretty straightforward one: Liverpool have lost 18 games in all competitions this season.
Even with all of the added context, it is a startling number for a team that won the title by a 10-point margin last season and were predicted in some quarters to be similarly dominant this term.
It is the most defeats Liverpool have suffered in a single campaign since 2014-15, after which FSG stuck by manager Brendan Rodgers only to sack him two months into the new season when form failed to improve. The inevitable parallels with the final days of the Rodgers era are doing little to aid Slot’s cause.
While Liverpool historically are not trigger-happy when it comes to hiring and firing coaches, there is precedent within the Premier League for managers being relieved of their duties shortly after winning the title.
Claudio Ranieri was sacked in 2016-17, just nine months after his improbable triumph with relegation favourites Leicester, while both Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini were dismissed by Chelsea and Manchester City, respectively, after failing to mount convincing title defences.
It is also worth noting that, before this season, Slot had never in his managerial career lost two league games in a row. While that speaks to the Dutchman’s successes elsewhere, it also means he has never found himself in a situation like this one, where there is enormous pressure on him to turn things around.
Different managers have different specialities, and Slot has not yet shown himself to be the kind of coach capable of turning the tide when the chips are down.
Steve Nicol slams Liverpool’s defensive display after their 3-2 defeat to Man United.
When teamsheets were circulated at Old Trafford on Sunday, one player was conspicuous by his absence. Alexander Isak had reminded everyone of his quality with his instinctive strike against Crystal Palace the previous weekend but did not make the trip to Manchester due to a minor groin problem sustained in training.
It is reflective of the Sweden international’s turbulent debut season at Anfield that it took just eight days for a rare flicker of optimism to be emphatically snuffed out. Isak has struggled for both form and fitness since his British-record move from Newcastle United last summer, having only returned from nearly four months out with a broken fibula in April.
His absence against United would perhaps not have been so keenly felt had fellow summer signing Hugo Ekitike not also been sidelined with an Achilles injury that is expected to keep him out for at least nine months, while Salah is still recovering from the muscle problem he picked up against Palace.
At the other end of the pitch, injuries to both Alisson Becker and Giorgi Mamardashvili meant a starting place for third-choice goalkeeper Freddie Woodman, while midfielder Curtis Jones filled in at right-back.
Understandably, much has been made of Liverpool’s £450 million spending spree in last summer’s transfer window, but the fact that the three headline signings — Isak, Ekitike and Florian Wirtz — have only shared a pitch for 119 minutes this term illustrates the Reds’ continued injury misfortune.
As head coach, the final word on recruitment does not lie with Slot and therefore he cannot be held primarily responsible for the glaring gaps in his squad, particularly in wide areas following the departure of Luis Díaz to Bayern Munich last summer.
With Liverpool looking to plug some of those gaps in the upcoming transfer window, there is a scenario where Slot is able to succeed with a more well-balanced squad next term.
Away from matters on the pitch, the biggest mitigation for this season’s struggles is the unfathomable tragedy of last summer, when striker Diogo Jota was killed in a car crash in July alongside his brother, André Silva.
The impact of Jota’s loss is unquantifiable and in no way absolves Slot and his players for some of their abysmal showings this term. Slot has always been quick to rightly point out that the loss of Jota will be felt most profoundly by his family but, in a season where Liverpool’s psychological frailties have regularly been questioned, it would be disingenuous to suggest the tragedy has not affected the Dutchman and his squad whatsoever.
Slot: VAR decisions have gone against Liverpool all season
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results — or so the saying goes. Certainly, Liverpool have been guilty of repeatedly falling into the same trap this season, with familiar problems too often rearing their heads.
Against United on Sunday, Liverpool at times looked every bit as naive, tactically confused and underprepared as they did in the reverse fixture at Anfield in October, which the Reds lost 2-1.
It was obvious that United would look to start quickly at Old Trafford and try to exploit Liverpool’s weaknesses defending set-pieces and in transition. It is alarming, then, that Slot’s side appeared to have no strategy to combat this gameplan during a shambolic opening period in which they conceded two goals in the space of 14 minutes via both of those avenues.
It is impossible to define Liverpool’s current identity without simply describing a team that is consistently less than the sum of its parts.