Steven Gerrard has sounded the alarm over Arne Slot’s future at Liverpool, warning that the Dutchman could come under serious pressure if the club’s slide continues over the next week.
A record-breaking £446 million outlay on new signings last summer was supposed to launch Liverpool into a new era. Instead, Slot’s second season has stalled. Liverpool sit a sobering 21 points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal, their hopes of securing Champions League football now hanging by a thread.
For Gerrard, watching from the outside, the gap is more than just a number.
Gerrard’s warning for Slot
Speaking on talkSPORT, the former Liverpool captain made it clear that the next few days could shape the club’s stance on Slot.
"I think if the ownership and the people above, they see that gap, the Villa, and United stretches or gets any worse, I worry for the manager's position," Gerrard said. "I don't want to see that happen. I'm a huge fan of Arne Slot. I was blown away by his first season."
That admiration came with a stark caveat. The Fulham fixture and the looming Champions League tie against PSG now feel like checkpoints in Slot’s tenure.
"I think the key to this situation will be the Fulham game, in terms of if he can put more heat on United and Villa, and he can stay in the PSG game into next week, I think everything will be fine and in a better place in five, six days' time. But if this was to get any worse, I'd be worried for the manager, I must say."
The message was clear: results now carry more than just points. They carry consequences.
City defeat exposes deeper flaws
Gerrard’s concern is not only about league tables and qualifying spots. It is about what Liverpool are becoming on the pitch – and what they sounded like off it.
The defeat to Manchester City cut deep. Liverpool created chances and squandered them, punished ruthlessly by a City side Gerrard described as "outstanding over the course of the game." That part, he could accept. The rest, he could not.
"They had the chances, which they never took, and I think we all know in the big games, you've got to take your chances when they come along," he said.
The pressure finally told in a different way. It was not just Liverpool’s collapse during the game that jarred with Gerrard, but the players’ reaction once the final whistle had gone.
"It was really worrying and concerning the way Liverpool did crumble, and also even more alarming what the players are saying after the game, in terms of saying there's no fight, we gave the game up."
For a club that built its modern identity on relentlessness, those words cut against everything Anfield expects.
"At Liverpool football club, that can't happen on the pitch, and it certainly can't be said off the pitch, so worrying times, I must say."
A defining spell for Slot
Slot arrived as the bright new architect of Liverpool’s future, his first season drawing praise from figures like Gerrard, who called him "a very, very good coach" and "a good man." That goodwill still exists, but it now runs alongside a hard reality.
Liverpool are chasing Aston Villa and Manchester United, not Arsenal and City. They are fighting to stay in the Champions League conversation, not to define the title race. The club’s huge financial backing last summer only sharpens the focus on the man in the dugout.
Fulham first. PSG after that. Two games that will not decide Slot’s entire reign, but could go a long way to deciding how much patience he is afforded to fix a team Gerrard no longer recognises as the Liverpool he once captained.
