Arne Slot is floating on a slow barge towards the Liverpool sack | OneFootball

Arne Slot was gesticulating. Arne Slot was pointing. Arne Slot was shouting. No one was listening. Or even looking. They were comfort habits rather than constructive in-game management

SW6 has not been kind to Slot; comfy Craven Cottage is where his 26-match unbeaten streak finished last season, when Liverpool began to lose their discipline on the highway to the title.

The Dutchman lived and breathed every moment of his impressive debut season. The football was more contained, but Liverpool were probably the best team in the world until December 2024. After a 2-0 win over Brentford, Jamie Carragher said: “That was almost like a Man City performance in that the game felt finished as soon as the second goal went in. It didn’t feel like there was much jeopardy in the game.” Oh for those days of control and certainty.

The 47-year-old can exude ‘annoyed’ in a way that used to appeal to the fanbase. Those furious hand motions simulated the push on Ibou Konate as Everton snatched a 2-2 draw in the last minute at Goodison Park. You could sense the pain. But Liverpool were in a title race when every negative felt like a calamity. The Reds were livid, but alive and well. Slot was red-carded, just like Curtis Jones, but he was a manager on a mission.

Eleven months later, another late equaliser at the Cottage felt like the end of a long and arduous road to nowhere for Liverpool 2.0. Or 0.2.

Slot’s actions are muted pitch side and muffled behind the microphone. Liverpool’s league position is fourth, the minimum requirement in old money. It’s passable, but so is excrement. These current Reds could never play the lead part in a 90-minute epic. They don’t have enough footage to put together a captivating trailer right now.

Slot is talking a lot in press conferences to fill the emptiness created by another anodyne episode. There’s been an upturn in results since losing nine from 12, but it feels like the most miserable nine-match unbeaten run. Fifty shades of grey without the sex.

It is true they turned a deficit into a 2-1 lead through Florian Wirtz and Cody Gakpo. This Liverpool can’t manage pressure at the death – even against a Fulham that always concede late. They met their match at the weekend. Pool are experts at the late, late concession.

The football Gods don’t like Slot’s excuses. They certainly won’t agree that Harrison Reed’s 35-yard worldie was the Cottagers’ first chance of the game. Gaslighting. Is that the modern phrase? When the fun stops, stop. Liverpool are joyless and jittery.

The game is a prime example of doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Yes, Hugo Ekitike is missing. That doesn’t help, but the narrative is unchanged. They plod. They pass. They play as if in a half-paced practice behind closed doors. Then Fulham sprint across the pedestrian crossing where Liverpool walk to take the lead.

The manager must have words at half-time. There is a reaction. There’s a disallowed goal. Then there’s another one. Wirtz is deemed onside even if he technically isn’t.

Liverpool press and sniff for a second in a five-minute cameo. Seen that movie short before? Yep. The sequel goal doesn’t come and this AFCON-light Fulham bully them. Slot stands aside as his team run out of puff. There are no subs to stem the reverse tide. In fact, Wirtz comes off first and Liverpool get worse. They are PC Plod with no truncheon. Everything is blunt. The two shared goals in injury time are in the wrong order for the man under pressure.

Liverpool have had a run of ‘very favourable fixtures’ but have drawn four when a few weeks back it was just boom or bust. Slot has gone from chucking all his chips in on the trading floor to the dullest corporate risk management video ever devised.

The former Feyenoord man conducted himself superbly during the summer, finding the right words, the right mood to handle tragedy. The football bit has been the problem.

The deadpan jokes have disappeared. Klopp once said that “only silly idiots stay on the floor” after disappointment. Slot is not on the floor, but he’s apparently reached his ceiling. He’s in a trance where every move is the same. Chiesa gets five to fifteen minutes? Check. Rio Ngumoha ignored? Check. Caretaker Calum McFarlane had more authority and nous at the Etihad.

The 2-2 draw with Fulham at Anfield a year ago was pure thunder and lightning by a team a man down, a thrilling salvage job directed by the manager. Slot is floating on a slow barge that doesn’t know east from west. North London could be hell on high water this Thursday.