As Liverpool limp towards the end of the 2025-26 season, now out of Europe with no shot at silverware and facing a difficult task of finishing in the top five and so qualifying for next season’s Champions League, focus shifts to what comes next.
For many, head coach Arne Slot’s position is tenuous at best. Liverpool have appeared to be drifting in the wrong direction for more than a calendar year now, their press declining their fitness falling off their finishing running poor.
Yet even as consistently
poor results and poor performances have spiked the mood around the club, there remains doubt. After all, even as they declined towards the end of last season they managed to win the Premier League.
And this is Liverpool Football Club. Historically, Liverpool don’t like to fire managers quickly. For some, that they’re not like Chelsea or Manchester United in that sense is a point of pride.
“We’ve been coaches so I understand the pressure he’s under and that the buck stops with the manager,” was former Liverpool midfielder and coach Sammy Lee’s take on the situation. “But listen, I know we’re Liverpool Football Club and we don’t [fire managers], but something’s got to change.
“Because one thing that is so un-Liverpool is that 26 our of 31 games we’ve been out-run. It’s so un-Liverpool where one guy, a 40-year-old, even if he’s a fitness fanatic like [James Milner], you know he’s out-running all of our midfield. So something’s gotta change.
“Now it’s not all about the numbers, but when the numbers hit you in the face and we’re all looking at it being such a difficult watch you start putting two and two together.”
Lee made nearly 200 appearances for the Reds during the 80s, with the midfielder winning league titles in 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1986 as well as being part of a pair of European Cup winning sides in 1981 and 1984 and a slew of domestic cups.
As a coach he took on the role of assistant manager to Rafa Benitez in 2008 and, for many, will be one of the most recognizable Liverpool figures going back over the past 40+ years.
