Arne Slot Says Things Will Get Better for Liverpool at Some Point

Liverpool started off their Friday evening match against Aston Villa not completely terribly, with Arne Slot’s embattled Reds appearing at least game and competitive on the road against a side level with them on points heading into the penultimate match of the 2025-26 Premier League season.

They even continued to compete after going down a goal. The game, though, started to slip away. Old problems returned. The press was ineffective. Passing was sloppy. Defensive structure was often non-existent.

Liverpool didn’t look sharp. There were increasingly frequent gaps for Villa to exploit.

By the time the final whistle blew on a 4-2 Villa victory, with Liverpool scoring a stoppage time goal to make the final scoreline a little less embarrassing than the place the performance had ended up, it felt like a capitulation. Liverpool were bad. Liverpool didn’t care. Liverpool would rather be in Ibiza.

“Damaging because we needed either a win or maybe, maybe, maybe two draws,” Slot said of the result, which adds a little doubt to Liverpool’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League. “Now we know for sure that we need a win next week if we have to do it ourselves. So that’s really damaging.

“There were parts in the game I felt a result could have gone our way. But I think what people are focused on is the period after 2-1 where we couldn’t find any momentum and we conceded two other goals. It’s frustrating because as a manager you’re responsible if things happen time and time again.”

That, of course, is the sad reality of the situation Liverpool and Slot find themselves in. This keeps happening. It’s now May and this keeps happening. You go back to January of 2025, when Liverpool had largely won the league and began to take their foot off the gas, and ever since this keeps happening.

It’s been 12 months it’s been 15 months it’s been 18 months and it keeps happening. Nothing Slot says after it happens yet again is wrong or bad, perhaps, but at some point people simply stop wanting to hear it. At some point, the fact it keeps happening and you can’t seem to fix it is all that matters.

“I can understand at this moment in time that [the fans] don’t have a lot of confidence or a lot of feeling that things can be much better next season,” Slot added. “But I think they are then underestimating what a window can do, what a new start can do. I think we know quite well what to improve.

“I think one of the things we also have to improve is also very, very obvious. If you miss nine players that can start a game of football and almost all of them are starters for us, then if you add to that in a window, that will automatically lead to much more, but that’s my opinion and no-one has to agree.

“Even today, for large parts of the game we were close to a result but when you are the better team you need to generate more chances and if you have chances you need to score. I don’t think the difference is so big, only doing in a few situations the right thing we would have a massive upward possibility.”

On one hand there might be some truth in that. Having fewer injured players helps. Having in a few new summer signings and better depth helps. Having a break and a fresh start helps. But also it’s been 12 months. It’s been 15 months. It’s been 18 months. And this just keeps happening. Again and again.