Arne Slot walked into Liverpool as the man who dared to follow Jurgen Klopp – and promptly won the Premier League in his first season. That kind of start usually buys time. At Anfield, it has only raised the stakes.
Year two has been unforgiving. A 4-0 capitulation to Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Stuttering league form. Champions League qualification suddenly in doubt. And now a quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain that Liverpool enter as clear underdogs, with the manager’s future hanging in the balance.
This is no gentle bedding-in period. It is a fight to stay in the job.
The case Slot has to make
On BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club, Phil Jagielka laid out the argument Slot must take into his next meeting with Fenway Sports Group. It was blunt, and it cut to the core of Liverpool’s problems.
“If Arne Slot walked in there and said, ‘give me next season,’ he says, ‘give me a centre-half or two, give me a strike force that is fit, and you will see a different team.’”
That is the sales pitch. Not a grand vision, not a romantic rebuild. Three players. Two centre-backs. One forward. Back me, and judge me then.
Jagielka did not dress it up. Liverpool, in his view, failed in the basics last summer.
“They should have got a centre-half in the summer and didn’t,” he said, pointing to a glaring gap that has haunted Slot’s second campaign. At the other end of the pitch, injuries have stripped the attack of rhythm and threat. Jagielka highlighted the absence of Alexander Isak, noting that while the forward was not in top form before his injury, Liverpool “have not had him” at all as an option.
The looming departure of Mohamed Salah only deepens the sense of flux. The Egyptian will not be at Anfield next season, a reality that forces Slot and the club to contemplate a different shape, a different emphasis, and perhaps fewer headaches about how to accommodate their long-time talisman.
For Jagielka, this is exactly where Slot must be strongest.
“If you are Arne Slot and are going in to speak to your board, that is how you sell, I won’t say the dream, but you say sign me three players, a couple of defenders and maybe another forward option, and he’d probably back himself.”
The Dutchman, Jagielka suggested, may feel “a bit unlucky or naive” about not landing another defender, but the verdict is clear: those are the positions where Liverpool have struggled, and that is where the manager must demand help if he is to turn the tide.
Klopp’s shadow and a rumour across the water
All of this plays out under the longest shadow in modern Liverpool history.
Jurgen Klopp left with his legend intact, his connection to the club and the city untouched. Now, in the middle of Slot’s turbulence, whispers have started to circle: could Klopp come back?
Former Aston Villa and Everton chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking to Football Insider, revealed that talk of a Klopp return is doing the rounds in his circles.
“There was one interesting thought the other day that somebody gave me, that there’s Bonnie Prince Jurgen waiting across the water to come back and reclaim his throne,” Wyness said.
It is the kind of image that catches fire quickly among supporters. The beloved leader, biding his time, ready to step back in. Wyness, though, struck a note of realism.
“Now, to me, that’s a little bit fanciful, but you never know. In football, we never know. And there is that rumour strongly circulating in my network and that could be the case.”
Fanciful or not, the idea is out there. For a fanbase unsettled by recent performances and anxious about the direction of travel, Klopp’s name remains the ultimate emotional trigger.
Wyness, however, sees a different figure as the more likely heir if Slot’s tenure ends.
“Now, Xabi Alonso, to me, is still the favourite to take over. I think the dream of Jurgen coming back is a bit of a big dream, but it would obviously be the go-to fantastic solution that would perk the Liverpool fans up.
“They’re going to have to get used to Xabi Alonso and I do think that will be the move that will be made.”
Alonso, a Champions League winner with Liverpool as a player and now one of Europe’s most admired young coaches, would tick every romantic and footballing box. His name, like Klopp’s, hovers over Slot’s reign every time results dip.
FSG’s decision point
Behind the scenes, the mood has shifted from patience to scrutiny. Liverpool have brought their end-of-season review forward, a clear signal that Slot’s position is under active examination rather than quietly parked until May.
The timing is no coincidence. A brutal exit from the FA Cup, uncertainty in the league, and the looming test against PSG form a volatile backdrop. A heavy defeat in Europe would not just hurt the club’s prestige; it would push Slot even closer to the edge.
So the path is stark.
On one side, Slot goes into those meetings with FSG armed with Jagielka’s logic: last summer’s recruitment left him short, key forwards have been missing, Salah is on his way out, and the squad needs surgery, not another change in the dugout. Give him two centre-backs. Give him a fit, reinforced front line. Then judge.
On the other, the allure of a reset grows. Klopp’s name whispers through the rumour mill. Xabi Alonso’s rises in every conversation about the future. And Liverpool, a club that has grown used to chasing the very top, will not tolerate a prolonged slide.
The next few weeks will not just decide a manager’s fate. They will show whether Liverpool still believe in the man who delivered a title at the first attempt – or whether the pull of the past, and the promise of a different future, proves too strong to resist.
