Liverpool should sack Arne Slot and here are a full 20 reasons why | OneFootball

Arne Slot is still the Liverpool manager after turning his own title-winning side into Premier League pushovers, short on quality, dynamism and hope for the future under his stewardship.

Owners FSG have backed him to the hilt but reports suggest they’re now wavering. Here are 20 reasons why they should give Slot the boot.

Salah-led rebellion

After his pre-AFCON antics the latest breaking of ranks from Salah could have been dismissed as further sulking from a self-serving footballer looking to shirk blame for what has been his own dire season.

But the Reds legend having little skin left in the game as he’s now less than a week from his hero’s send-off from Anfield made his call for Liverpool to ‘go back to heavy metal’ football after ‘crumbling to yet another defeat’ a particularly hard-hitting and damning appraisal of Slot’s stewardship of the club, made far more significant by 17 of his current and former teammates liking the social media post.

Summer flops

Hugo Ekitike has been decent, Milos Kerkez has been alright, Jeremie Frimpong has flopped, Florian Wirtz has flopped harder and Alexander Isak has flopped hardest.

Most people assumed Liverpool would storm to consecutive Premier League titles but £450m-worth of signings have made the team significantly worse, providing significant credence to suggestions that Slot won the title in his debut season with Jurgen Klopp’s team.

Alternative options

The option has gone and we can’t quite believe Liverpool let Chelsea snap Xabi Alonso up without a challenge.

He might not turn out to be all he’s cracked up to be – the Spaniard can be sure of a tough time under BlueCo, even with the increase in autonomy they’re affording him.

A Liverpool marriage may not have been as perfect as we all assumed, but to blithely allow the guy most would pick as the ideal option to move to a Premier League rival will make plenty of Reds fans sick to their stomachs.

Still, Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards aren’t short of alternative suitors. Andoni Iraola and Oliver Glasner will both be available; Julian Nagelsmann is an option if they can wait until after the World Cup. It’s almost a case of ABS (Anyone But Slot).

Philosophy

We weren’t particularly enamoured with the style last season. Far too often Liverpool would go a goal or two up – typically thanks to some Salah genius – and then sit in as ‘game management’ trumped entertainment to the great dismay of Slot’s predecessor.

We tolerated it and Liverpool fans were in no position to complain, but a dramatic turning of the results tide has brought what is a horribly tepid style under severe scrutiny and Slot is shrinking under the lights.

It’s particularly significant at Anfield, where the intimidation factor has been nullified through the soporific effect Slot’s football has on the home fans.

20 defeats

The 4-2 loss to Aston Villa – arguably the nadir of the season – was Liverpool’s 20th defeat in all competitions.

No Liverpool manager has led them to more defeats in a single season, with Slot now above Rafael Benitez, who lost 19 in the 2004/2005 and 2009/2010 seasons, and did offset that first disappointment somewhat in Istanbul.

52 goals conceded

With one game to go no Liverpool team has conceded more in a 38-game Premier League season and the 20 they’ve shipped from set-pieces this term is the most in the top flight.

Ollie Watkins provided a damning assessment of the Liverpool event following his brace at Villa Park.

“They’re disjointed at the back and I feel like there’s a lot of space for me to run into. I’m going to get chances against them,” he said.

Away form

Liverpool are ninth in the away table on 24 points from 19 games. They’ve failed to beat any of the other top nine sides away from home, losing seven and drawing one.

“Dropping points in away games happens mainly after Europe in games where Liverpool are usually able to win,” Slot said in mitigation and five of the nine away defeats did indeed follow Champions League games.

One of the other four was to Wolves and there’s no explaining that.

He’s not Jurgen Klopp

No-one is, but Slot is really suffering from bearing no resemblance to Klopp in terms of footballing style, touchline demeanour or off-field character. Slot isn’t even a nicotine patch after the 40-a-day rush of his predecessor.

Ibrahima Konate

We get that failing to sign Marc Guehi was a bit of a disaster and Konate deserved some faith being shown in him after his excellent performances last season, but Joe Gomez must have been watching the Frenchman’s displays for much of this season wondering quite what he has done to Slot to see him snubbed in favour of Virgil van Dijk’s calamitous partner.

Cody Gakpo

Slot’s loyalty has come at a significant cost this season, and while Reds fans have baulked at the consistent inclusions of Konate and Alexis Mac Allister, no player has engendered more sighs and eye rolls than Gakpo.

His one trick of cutting inside and shooting became all-too predictable towards the end of last season and is now telegraphed to such an extent that it’s actually more of a danger to Liverpool than a threat to the opposition, such is the ease with which it can be prevented and countered.

Gakpo’s standing at Liverpool has been dealt a significant blow by breakout star Rio Ngumoha, who has emerged as the one shining light in the Liverpool attack at the age of 17.

Holidays

Van Dijk was asked to explain why he and several other Liverpool players had been pictured on their jollies in the week building up to the 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.

“I’m not sure it’s a holiday, It’s a city trip,” Van Dijk said like a dad explaining why yet another flight has been booked through the joint account to their wife less than a week after returning from the last un-holiday with the lads.

“You see Pep Guardiola giving Manchester City three days off last week and they are doing pretty well,” Van Dijk added. Yeah, the point is though, Virg, Liverpool aren’t doing well; quite the opposite in fact…

They’re getting worse

Would Slot be under less pressure right now if Liverpool hadn’t won the title last season? Having ‘credit in the bank’ has been consistently cited as a reason to stick with him, but say the post-Klopp decline came – as everyone expected – in his first season and this term was in fact an improvement upon that, we might currently be talking about slow progression.

Particularly when combined with the tiresome ‘This Means More’, Liverpool don’t sack their managers willy-nilly schtick that’s rammed down our throats by Jamie Carragher et al. we might now be talking about a summer rebuild under a manager worth sticking with.

But there’s not just been a drop-off from last season to this, Liverpool having been getting steadily worse as this campaign’s gone on. Is it possible for new signings to bed out rather than in?

Giving up on the Carabao

“It’s always a blow to lose a game, especially when it leads to going out of a competition, but it’s the same selection I did last season in these rounds,” Slot said after his second string were thumped 3-0 by Crystal Palace.

“At this time we have only 15 or 16 [senior] players available and this club always used this competition for their academy players.”

But last season Liverpool won the Premier League, Arne. When the kids were dismantled by Crystal Palace this season the Reds had lost five or their last six games in all competitions and the Carabao Cup definitely should have been identified as one of two trophies they could realistically have won at that stage of the campaign.

Also – and Slot is far from the only manager to fail to grasp this factor – while the Carabao is the ugly sister of trophies, it’s also decided in March and winning it must provide a massive boost for the rest of the season.

After beating Arsenal at Wembley, Man City have picked up 16 points from a possible 18 in the Premier League to get themselves back in the title race and added the FA Cup to their trophy haul under Pep Guardiola.

Midfielders at right-back

There’s been a frankly bizarre ‘needs must’ attitude to Slot’s right-back selections this season, with Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones both frequently playing out of position, typically not when required but when Slot doesn’t fancy one, some or any of Conor Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong, Joe Gomez or Calvin Ramsey.

Jones has looked very suspect in that position, because it’s not his position, and while Szoboszlai has looked perfectly capable because he’s a very, very good footballer, not playing Liverpool’s best player this season in his best role has been baffling.

Media cool

The press conference composure which was hailed as gloriously Dutch last season is now grinding all the gears.

“We’ve definitely conceded far too many goals. We also haven’t scored enough goals,” Slot said after a Liverpool performance against Aston Villa which merited a Richie Wellens-style rant over his players’ lack of fight, dynamism and quality.

We get that Slot calling his players out now would only ensure his exit as the indication is he’s already lost the dressing room, and a manager publicly rebuking individuals rarely goes well no matter how secure they are in their job, but rather than providing his team with endless excuses and suggesting that only small tweaks need to be made here and there, Slot would have endeared himself far more to the Liverpool fans had he – in not so many words – called them sh*t when they were sh*t.

They’re boring even when they win

The fans, having admittedly been rather spoiled under Klopp and his helter-skelter football, need something to hang their hats on going forward and will be struggling after a season that’s not only featured more defeats than many of them have ever seen, but often painfully boring football no matter the result.

Substitutions

Liverpool’s substitutes have been directly involved in just seven goals this season. 14 Premier League managers have had more success, including Wolves’ Rob Edwards (8) but not Sean Dyche, who’s tied with Slot on seven despite taking charge of just 18 Nottingham Forest games.

A familiar tale of woe this season has seen Liverpool chasing games after a poor first half, and on most of those occasions Konate has been taken off and Ryan Gravenberch moved to centre-back in the Slot Hail Mary.

Konate off and a forward on has been tried on 13 occasions when either behind or on level terms since Slot took over and they’ve won just one of those 13 games. Try something else, mate.

Outrun

In 31 Premier League games this season (excuse us for not having the up-to-date stats on this) Liverpool had been outrun by the opposition 27 times. That’s an extraordinary and damning statistic for any football team, let alone one that was managed by Klopp less than two years ago.

The German coach was famed for his “ruthless” training sessions in preparation for his high-pressing style and while that sometimes led to more injuries and Liverpool have clearly benefited from a drop-off in intensity insofar as the players are tweaking fewer muscles, the more sedate training sessions have come at a far greater cost on the pitch as their fitness has been found wanting.

Doctor Liverpool

They’ve become the team to play to break from a funk. Tottenham had lost five under the spin before welcoming Liverpool in mid-March to win what was their only point under Igor Tudor. Chelsea had lost six on the bounce before rocking up at Anfield and earning a well-deserved point.

Worst-ever Champions League qualifiers

If they make it, and they could yet miss out with Bournemouth four points behind them with two games to play, Liverpool will qualify for the Champions League with the lowest-ever points tally in Premier League history if they fail to beat Brentford on the final day of the season, either matching their record from the 2003/04 season if they draw or beating it if they lose.

They would have finished ninth with 59 points in the previous two seasons. Making it into Europe’s showcase competition is less a signal of this ‘not being that bad a season from Liverpool’ but being a bloody brilliant iteration of The Best League In The World when almost anyone can beat almost anyone.