The shocking Premier League that underlines how lucky Arne Slot will be to keep Liverpool job | OneFootball

Liverpool kicking off the 2025-26 campaign with a five-match winning streak feels a long time ago now, doesn’t it? And the Premier League table since that point makes damning reading for under-pressure manager Arne Slot.

There was a lot of chatter along the lines of “give them the trophy now” when the reigning champions went out and invested heavily last summer, bringing in the three most expensive signings of the summer in Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak.

Those who backed Liverpool might have felt vindicated in their “winning mentality” when they dug deep to notch victories over Bournemouth, Newcastle, Arsenal, Burnley and Everton back in August and early September.

But there was another school of thought that Liverpool were riding their luck – four of those wins were via late winners, a couple in particular absolutely last-gasp deep into injury time – and that they’d get soon get found out.

And that certainly proved to be the case, with their title hopes left in tatters by going on to lose six of the next seven Premier League outings.

Slot’s Reds did at least recover in mid-season to mount a campaign just about good enough for Champions League qualification (probably), but results have remained iffy and performances continually underwhelming.

They can consider themselves fortunate that Chelsea’s even more spectacular implosion keeps them in the hunt for a top-five finish, but Champions League football is still not guaranteed ahead of their final match against Brentford next week.

There have been mitigating factors, including bad luck with injuries to marquee signings, but Slot – to date – has looked patently unable to build a successful new-look team in his own image.

The Dutch coach proved an inspired appointment when it came to inheriting what Jurgen Klopp left behind, with his only signing being Federico Chiesa – who played a grand total of 104 Premier League minutes in last season’s title win.

But Liverpool have looked nowhere near Champions League qualification – behind the likes of Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth, a long way off Aston Villa and Manchester United, and in another stratosphere entirely to Arsenal and Man City – since they lost their momentum at the start of the season.

The fact that they’ve only done marginally better than Merseyside rivals Everton, as well as Chelsea and Newcastle who are enduring their own disasterclasses, tells you everything about quite how poor Liverpool have been since late September.

“I don’t think I am deciding that alone by myself, but I have every reason to believe I am the Liverpool manager next season,” Slot told reporters in the wake of Liverpool’s latest setback, Friday night’s 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa.

“First of all, I am contracted to this club and second of all from all the talks we are having. That is my take on it.

“But if you don’t have the best season, especially if you compare with last season – if you compare it with other seasons you might have a different debate – then this has definitely not been a great season and it is also normal that criticism comes.

“We have all had our share, and with ‘all’ I mean the players have had their share, the manager has had their share and other people in the club have had their share. That is how things work nowadays if you don’t win the league.”

Here’s how the table stacks up since Liverpool’s five-match winning streak at the start of the season.

Note: to create this table, we’ve used our sister site Football365 and their brilliant Premier League Tables resource – a goldmine for creating and exploring custom tables.