Liverpool very much appear to be a broken side. Having started the 2025-26 season off under the shadow of the tragic passing of Diogo Jota. Since then, poor performances and poor results have begun to pile
up and pile on additional pressure, leaving a side that appears shattered.
Bizarre mistakes, mental fragility, and the ability to fall apart completely even when things seem mostly to be going pretty well have come to define Arne Slot’s side in his second year in charge. Long gone is any talk of a title defence, and hopes of a top four finish are starting to slip away as well.
On Wednesday, they followed up a dire 3-0 defeat at Anfield to relegation-zone Nottingham Forest by being beaten 4-1, again at Anfield, by Dutch outfit PSV in a game where on balance the Reds could argue they were the better side—but threw it all away by switching off at key moments.
“I think it is always about the team and I think we can all do better, and I think this goes for everyone, including myself,” the manager reflected, commendably resisting the urge to blame individuals for the latest Liverpool collapse in a season that is spiralling into crisis.
“I don’t think this is the time to emphasise on individual errors. It is more the time to talk about the team instead of the individual errors because individual errors are made in football. We have to make sure that if we make them then we react or make it up so that it doesn’t lead to a goal.
“That’s a team thing and not an individual thing. I don’t think it’s important if it is fair or not, I think this is all still a shock for everyone. For the players, for the journalists, for me—for everyone. This season is a shock and it’s very, very unexpected if you look at the quality we have.”
The question now is where to go from here. There’s talk of potentially replacing the manager, but such is the manner of this squad’s dysfunction, broken first by tragedy and now mired in a dire run of form, it’s easy to see how that could backfire and make things even worse.
All that seems certain is that Slot and the players will have to try to find a way somehow to regroup to face a 17th-place West Ham on the weekend that will smell blood and the chance to drag themselves above the relegation fray by heaping further misery on this misfiring Liverpool side.
