It’s not unusual for a head coach on the hot seat to say he isn’t worried about his job. And it’s not unusual for upper management and sporting directors to mumble supportive things about such a head coach.
Yet despite Liverpool’s massively disappointing 2025-26 season, that the club look tired and without a tactical identity in May while about half of last season’s title winning side appear set to leave the club in the summer and the mood at Anfield creeps towards toxic, the supportive noises around
head coach Arne Slot seem to be far more than simply noise.
Despite poor performances, poor results, and a side that whose pressing and passing efficiency, finishing, defending, and fitness have all regressed markedly over the past 18 months with no real shoots of hope for fans to latch on to in sight, it would be a shock if Slot departs at season’s end.
“I don’t think I’m deciding it by myself but I have every reason to believe I’ll be Liverpool manager next season,” Slot said at his pre-match press conference ahead of Liverpool’s penultimate game of the 2025-26 season against Aston Villa on Friday night.
Most recently, Slot and the team were booed by Anfield following a low-energy 1-1 home draw against Chelsea that came after London’s Blues had lost their past six league matches.
Some fans, particularly the ones who enjoy being able to cast themselves as morally superior to their fellow supporters, were quick to criticise the Anfield crowd. Yet this growing toxicity is clearly a direct result of the club having managed to convince everyone that Slot’s job is not in doubt despite the squad having been adrift for 18 months now.
Comparisons have been made to Manchester United recently sticking with Erik ten Hag a season too long when things had clearly been trending badly for more than a year with no real, solid signs of the foundations for future success or any kind of a tactical identity in place, just as is the case for Slot at Liverpool now.
Liverpool fans, though, will likely remember back to the club doing the same with Brendan Rodgers in 2015. Michael Edwards, then the sporting director and now returned to the club, was key to the decision to persevere with Rodgers despite all evidence pointing towards a need for change.
Sure enough, despite a significant summer’s backing—including sourcing Rodgers-favourite Christian Benteke from Aston Villa in a then quite costly £32.5M deal—things didn’t look a whole lot better the next season.
The mood at Anfield, already trending towards toxic as the previous season neared its end, turned vile. On the occasion, Jürgen Klopp was fortuitously available to replace Rodgers and bail out Edwards and owners Fenway Sports Group from what would otherwise have been a disastrous decision. Another Klopp isn’t likely to be there this October.
“First of all, I am contracted to this club,” Slot added of why he is convinced he’ll still be in charge at Liverpool next season. “Second of all, from all the talks we are having. That is my take on it. But if you don’t have the best season, you might have a debate.
“This has definitely not been a great season, so it is also normal that criticism comes. We have all had our share. The players have had their share, the manager has had their share, and other people in the club have had their share. That is how things work now if you don’t win the league.
“I think the world has gone to, if a manager or a club doesn’t have the best season there is always a debate about that. It is not only Liverpool, it is all around the world. That is the new reality in football.
“It is not up to me to judge the people who judge me, they have every right to have their opinion and in this modern time everyone can share his opinion as well [but] this happened ten, 15 years ago as well but then you did it in a pub and not everyone heard it. Now it is also probably done in the pub.”
A decade ago, when Liverpool chose to stick with Brendan Rodgers despite all evidence suggesting they shouldn’t, the debate in fact took place on social media and fan sites—including this one—in a manner not all that dissimilar to today.
It also took place at local pubs around Anfield, and when it did those people at the pubs carried it into the stadium—just as they did last weekend when Slot and the club were booed by a Kop.
You would have to go back far further than ten or 15 years to find a situation fundamentally different to the one today. And it was only a decade ago that the club ignored the fans and made the wrong decision. On the surface at least, it appears they’re fully determined to make that same mistake again.
