This meant Liverpool management wasted two international breaks. Twice in two months, while the players were away from home, they had a chance to rebuild the team and come up with a plan to resolve the crisis. Liverpool have made two comebacks and suffered confidence-sapping defeats at Anfield. First there was a heartbreaking loss to Manchester United in October, and then disaster at the hands of Nottingham Forest.
Having lost six of their last seven league games, the Premier League champions look battered and bruised and hoping for the final bell. They are mentally cornered. Liverpool generally fared well in the first 30 minutes against Forest, having far more possession and taking eight shots to the visitors’ three. However, once the visiting team took a 1-0 lead, Liverpool completely lost their cool and lost their heads. They are very fragile right now and it has re-emerged in the last 90 minutes. After the initial knockback, they never recovered.
This season, the title holders have a 1-0 record in nine games across all competitions. They lost eight of those games, only winning away to Eintracht Frankfurt, who played kamikaze football and rolled out the red carpet. Arne Slott’s side’s recent performance in the Premier League (21 points to 3 points) has seen them relegated since defeating Everton.
Arsenal are five points behind Arsenal after four games and could end this weekend 11 points behind the Gunners. Slott isn’t in danger of losing his job just yet, but he needs to improve quickly or he’ll pay the price for how easy it is to win for the team. This Liverpool are soft touch and are quite simply a bad football team at the moment.
If the Dutchman can’t find a solution, the Reds face a terrifying and unenviable problem. Liverpool have changed managers mid-season only twice this century. Roy Hodgson was sacked in January 2011, followed by Brendan Rodgers in October 2015. All the other managers saw him finish at least his last season.
It is not inconceivable that Liverpool find themselves in a situation where they need to make a mid-season managerial change in the coming months. Slott only had a finite number of losses before the credits from last season’s title win expired. It’s not easy to deal with the death of players and the huge disarray of the team, but tactically his team is really poor. No matter which team he chooses, the question remains. It’s equal parts mental and the fact that there’s no clear style or content on our side at the moment.
But if Slott is sacked, who will Liverpool turn to? Few, if any, of the currently unemployed managers are qualified. The hierarchy at the Merseyside club will struggle to convince the Kop that any of Thiago Motta, Marco Rose or Gary O’Neill are suitable for the job. Brendan Rodgers certainly won’t be back.
All other names on Liverpool’s list before Slott’s appointment have now held roles. Sebastian Hoeness from Staggert, Michel from Girona and Roberto de Zerbi from Marseille. Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola and Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner are sure to be linked if the Anfield position is vacant.
However, Glasner plays in a back three and even if it helps in the short term, Liverpool fans will not want to see him in the long term. Iraola is in the middle of a hugely successful project at Bournemouth and convincing him to leave is one thing, paying the amount the Cherries are demanding to lose their manager midway through the season is another. Nor has he managed talent like the big names on Merseyside.
Other names include Simone Inzaghi, who also primarily uses a 3-5-2, and Xabi Alonso, who is expected to leave Real Madrid soon. Who else is there? Jurgen Klopp, of course. But is it too romantic to hope for the German player’s return? Can Klopp really save this?
His last two seasons suggest otherwise. And is he really psychologically ready to return to this cauldron? He seems to be enjoying his new life to the fullest. And that’s the problem — as much as Slot isn’t getting the most out of this team, there aren’t many obvious candidates.
Fenway Sports Group will be hoping that the guy who got so many things right last year starts to show he’s still the right man for the job. But if Slott can’t do that, it’s hard to see who will save Liverpool’s season, which is at serious risk of collapsing as an absolute disaster.
