Liverpool might sack Arne Slot for TWO abnormal reasons – leading journalist | OneFootball

A senior national journalist has outlined two reasons why Liverpool could sack Arne Slot, and neither are what you’d expect.

Whether to stick or twist with Slot is unquestionably the biggest question Liverpool’s hierarchy are facing heading into the summer.

The Reds have looked a shadow of the team that marched to the Premier League title last year. Perhaps only Dominik Szoboszlai has performed to the standards you would expect, with every other star either slightly or significantly below their best.

Much of the focus is on Slot who cannot seem to find the answers. Questionable team selections aren’t helping (why is Cody Gakpo undroppable?), nor are the Dutchman’s explanations for his side’s failing this year which all too often veer off into full-blown whinge.

The presence of Xabi Alonso on the manager market has ramped up the stakes for Liverpool. If they don’t strike for the Spaniard, someone else surely will.

However, a fresh report from The Guardian’s highly respected journalist, Jonathan Liew, has shed light on why Slot could be sacked, and it goes beyond simply on-field results.

Firstly, Liew suggested Liverpool being unable to decipher why they’ve fallen off a cliff this season poses a problem for the club’s decision-makers.

If their end-of-season review still doesn’t throw up any answers, the only way they’ll know if Slot was the problem is by sacking him and trying a new manager.

The headline in Liew’s piece read: ‘Liverpool may end up getting rid of Slot purely because they cannot think of what else to do.’

In the copy, he added: ‘Liverpool are fifth in the Premier League, still in the Champions League, and have accumulated more league points since the start of last season than anybody bar Arsenal.

‘On the other hand, Liverpool are fifth in the Premier League, on the verge of elimination from the Champions League, and on pace to drop 22 points from last season.

‘How much of this is on Slot? What even is it in the first place? What can be fixed and salvaged and what demands to be changed?

‘The short answer – spoiler alert – is that nobody really knows. Nobody can judge the extent to which Slot is responsible for the decline of Salah or Alexis Mac Allister, for Liverpool’s skittish summer transfer business, for the injuries, for the inability to convert a four-on-two breakaway or clear a simple long ball.

‘We can certainly say he was not responsible for the death of Diogo Jota and the emotional turmoil that followed, but we have no real way of knowing whether it had any material effect on results.’

Second unusual reason for Slot sack

The second unexpected reason Slot might get the boot, per Liew, is the Dutchman has effectively already fulfilled what he was hired to do.

Many predicted a hangover and sharp decline in the post-Jurgen Klopp era. However, not only did Slot ensure the transition was smooth, but he guided the team he inherited to the Premier League title.

The fact Liverpool have successfully navigated the initial post-Klopp years could make the Reds more inclined to make a managerial change, per the reporter.

Furthermore, Liew bluntly explained that in modern-day football at least, the firing of a manager can and often is used by club’s as something of a ‘reset button’.

He continued: ‘In a way the modern big-club coach takes the job with the full awareness that they are basically a narrative device, a reset button to press when things get sticky, a meat sacrifice that allows everyone else to indulge the illusion of renewal.

‘You can’t shift the owners and you can’t sell an entire playing squad. So the purpose of the manager is essentially to be fired: to be responsible for the things they’re not really responsible for, to be immediately disposable, to provide the illusion of a simple solution where none exists.

‘Indeed, to take the most cynical view, you could argue that Slot has already served his purpose. The post-Klopp cliff-edge was spectacularly avoided.

‘Liverpool fans are in various shades of disgruntlement, for reasons often only tangentially related to the 22 guys they’re watching on the grass.

‘A few Liverpool-supporting friends have mentioned the beefed-up security checks at Anfield, generating long queues outside the ground and perhaps even contributing to so many of this season’s slow starts.

‘Slot is not responsible for this, either. But he will be made to carry the can nonetheless, the price for being the simplest target in an incredibly complex sport.

‘It isn’t the security checks, any more than it was the coffee bar or the data or the Dire Straits. But in an age of overanalysis and short-term solutions, he will have to go anyway, largely because nobody can think of a better idea.’