Liverpool legend claims two people are to blame for Arne Slot’s struggles | OneFootball

Edwards, Hughes and Transfer Planning Under Scrutiny

The latest Molby On The Spot on Anfield Index Pro offered one of the clearest examinations yet of Liverpool’s troubled recruitment landscape. In conversation with Trev Downey, Jan Molby delivered direct and uncompromising observations about the roles of Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes and how previous transfer planning has contributed to the team’s decline.

Mistakes in Transfer Strategy Come Into Focus

A key part of the discussion centred on how Liverpool reached a point where major squad surgery became unavoidable. Molby did not hesitate to highlight the root problem. “People talk about all the players we’ve signed, too many, and I go yeah but how come we put ourselves in a position where we needed to sign so many players,” he said. “That for me is bad planning.”

Molby called it plainly. “You put yourself in a position where you need to sign eight or 10 new players, that’s bad planning. How did we ever end up in that position?”

Downey agreed that this had been a longstanding concern and pointed to the summer as a moment when several unresolved issues were carried forward. Molby echoed that view later when he spoke about the feeling many fans shared. “There were certain things that you could question,” he said about the previous window and overall squad construction.

Departures That Made No Sense Internally

Molby then turned towards individual cases that highlighted deeper structural concerns. One of the starkest examples was the decision to sell the club’s most promising young centre back. “Why do we sell the most promising centre half we had,” he asked. “Is that because the money was good, 35 million euros?”

He continued with another detail that raised eyebrows. “Why in the end did we sell his deal so we would get, let’s say, 30 million euros more than we would have done 12 months down the line when we needed him…”

His conclusion was searing. “Those things just doesn’t make any sense to us.”

These were not offhand comments. They were laid out clearly and directly, and they fed into Molby’s broader concern about how the club’s recruitment processes had been managed.

Edwards and Hughes Await a Necessary Review

One of the most significant lines in the entire show came when Molby addressed where accountability must eventually fall. “At some stage we will have to visit Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

Downey recognised the weight of the statement immediately. The two figures appointed to shape Liverpool’s post Klopp and post Ward structure have already become central to how supporters understand the club’s trajectory. Molby’s remark placed them firmly in the spotlight.

His tone was not speculative. It was grounded in his view of how transfer operations should function, and what happens when they do not. Multiple times in the conversation he stressed that Liverpool “got so many things wrong” in the summer and that the consequences were now unavoidable.

January Decisions and Slot’s Future Intertwined

The show also linked the future of Edwards and Hughes with the upcoming January window. Downey asked the critical question. “Do you give Arne Slot the money and say go ahead and invest in players you think are the right players, and then if it doesn’t write itself, we’ve hamstrung ourselves for the next person coming in?”

Molby understood the dilemma. He outlined two possible outcomes. If December results ease some pressure, “do we then go into January and… we then don’t spend any money?” Alternatively, should results worsen, “we appoint somebody else… a new manager will look at a squad and he’d go, ‘If you want me to take this job, there’s certain places we need to strengthen.’”

In both scenarios, Edwards and Hughes inevitably become deeply involved. The window cannot be separated from the recruitment structure, and the recruitment structure cannot be separated from the decisions that shaped this season.

Molby’s final assessment of those decisions remained firm. “In the end we got so many things wrong.”