Liverpool have had a rough start to 2025-26 and, as we near the final days of October, we’re starting to drift out of any period we can fairly call the start and getting to the point where things for Liverpool are
just, well, rough. The results are rough, the performances rough, and increasingly the narratives surrounding the players and manager are getting rough.
Part of the problem is while Liverpool won the Premier League last season, they haven’t looked especially good at any point in the calendar year and things seem to be creeping in the wrong direction. Which makes a decision to not have manager Arne Slot meet the media ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup tie against Crystal Palace both understandable and eyebrow-raising.
Clubs are not required to hold press conferences in England’s second cup competition, and under Jürgen Klopp this often led to assistant Pepijn Lijnders being sent out to meet the media. It also meant when Liverpool players and coaches travelled to the Ballon d’Or ceremony ahead of the Southampton tie this season there were no issues involved with skipping it entirely.
There is precedent, then. There may also be a case that Slot and his players would be better focused in trying to fix what’s wrong then face a potentially confrontational media starting to smell blood in the water and a growing crisis at Liverpool. It’s not, however, the norm. And given everything else, the optics of skipping only seem to add to the feeling that something is wrong.
Which perhaps reflects the nature of crisis in sport and how narratives become self-sustaining. When things are going well, it can sometimes seem as if everything gets given a positive spin. When they aren’t, well, there’s just no winning. You either do the press conference and face the negativity or skip it and potentially fuel the negativity. It’s not fair, but it’s where we are.
