With reports that Chelsea are moving for Xabi Alonso and more rumblings from Liverpool that the club are determined to stick with head coach Arne Slot despite a disappointing 2025-26 campaign and pressing, passing, finishing, defending, and fitness regressing over the past 18 months, a jaded fanbase may soon have to come to grips with going into next season with only changes to the playing staff.
If that happens, a jaded fanbase and an Anfield that increasingly feels at odds with club upper management
will have to find their way to being excited come pre-season. We already know a slew of club legends will depart this summer, the likes of Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, and possibly Alisson Becker as well. Others will surely join them. And Slot is convinced the side will be better when everything’s said and done.
“Yeah, I do,” was Slot’s response this week when asked if he believes fans will come around in the end despite the current skepticism. “Not this season, by the way. This season they have their opinion and it will not change. But if we can have the summer we are planning to then I am 100% convinced we will be a different team next season than we are now. Different in terms of results, different in how things look.”
The problem, of course, is that for the fans it’s May and the current group still lack any kind of a tactical identity. Pressing patterns have regressed since January of 2025, as have passing patterns. The defence remains fragile and easily exploited. Fitness, once the calling card of Liverpool year in and year out, is a weak point with this group struggling with two games a week and regularly looking gassed by the hour mark.
Liverpool’s identity now is a slow team, a passive team, a tired and a pensive team. It’s a team that gives the Anfield crowd little to get excited about—and then regularly talks in the press about needing the fans behind them to make the difference. There seems a real gap in understanding these days, a gulf between supporters on one side and the manager, players, and upper management on the other.
With Slot and sporting directors Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes also all out of contract next summer, there are doubts over what happens even if things all work out. There has been plenty of chatter linking Edwards and Hughes with the Saudi league, while for Slot one might wonder if, after the experience of this season, he would even want to stick around should he end next season once again lauded.
