Why did Liverpool sack Arne Slot? How Premier League title-winning manager lost Reds trust
Liverpool have sacked head coach Arne Slot, bringing to an end two seasons in charge at Anfield.
Slot replaced Jurgen Klopp in 2024, a seemingly unenviable task after the German’s celebrated nine-year tenure on Merseyside.
But he led Liverpool to a dominant 2024/25 Premier League title triumph, securing a joint-record 20th English title for the club.
A summer spending spree that hit £446million, including the marquee signings of Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, suggested Slot was building a dynasty from a position of strength.
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Those plans crumbled as a squad hit by injuries came to look imbalanced, Wirtz and Isak struggled for form and fitness respectively, and star player Mohamed Salah clashed publicly with Slot.
Away from the field, Diogo Jota’s tragic death in a car accident last summer hung over Liverpool’s subsequent struggles on it.
The Reds finished the campaign without a trophy and limped to fifth place, at least securing Champions League football for next season. That was not enough to keep Slot in his post, as Liverpool confirmed in a club statement issued on Saturday.
Outgoing Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola has been identified as an early frontrunner to replace Slot.
Why did Liverpool sack Arne Slot?
In the statement, Liverpool said they had «collectively come to the conclusion that change is necessary in order for the club to keep moving forward».
There were plenty of warm words to counter this and the club also acknowledged the exceptional and difficult circumstances of Jota’s death.
«That this was a difficult decision for us to make as a club goes without saying,» it read. «The contribution Arne has made to Liverpool FC in the time that he has been with us has been significant, meaningful and – most importantly of all to supporters and ourselves – successful.
«As such, our appreciation for everything he has achieved could not be greater, particularly as it was underpinned by a work ethic, a diligence and a level of expertise which further underlined our view that he is a leader in his field.
«From the moment that we first encountered Arne, it was immediately clear that he is an individual who does not merely accept responsibility, he embraces it. This was evident when he agreed to take over as head coach, when he guided us to the Premier League title and throughout the season just ended, when he faced considerable challenges and burdens.
«At the same time, we have collectively come to the conclusion that change is necessary in order for the club to keep moving forward. Again, it must be stressed that this is not a decision which has been reached lightly, anything but.
«We would like to take this opportunity to place on record our appreciation for Arne, who will always hold a special place in the history of this football club as the coach who delivered Liverpool’s 20th league title. That accomplishment – made all the more remarkable as it arrived in his very first season in charge – was built on outstanding coaching and leadership every single day.
“He also helped guide the club through one of the most difficult periods imaginable following the loss of Diogo. The compassion and humanity he showed throughout that time said a great deal about him as a person.
“As such, we can only wish Arne well in the next stage of his coaching career, with our expectation being that he will continue to be successful. We do so in the knowledge that his Liverpool legacy is intact and will become yet more meaningful in the years and decades to come.
“Nevertheless, the conclusion we have come to is built on a belief that the team’s trajectory is best addressed through a change of direction. That does not diminish the work Arne has done here, or the respect we have for him. Nor is it a reflection of his talents. Rather, it is indicative of the need for a different approach.»
Analysis: The reasons behind Arne Slot’s sacking
Long-term loss of form
The reference to the «team’s trajectory» in Liverpool’s statement felt telling. The Reds finished 10 points ahead of Arsenal to win the title last season and effectively had the whole thing sewn up by February.
That partly masked a run of just four wins from the final 11 games of the season in all competitions. This slump was inflated by four winless matches after the Premier League title had been secured, but it also featured the Champions League last-16 exit against Paris Saint-Germain and the Carabao Cup final loss to Liverpool.
A fortuitous run of five straight wins at the start of the 2025/26 Premier League campaign came crashing down as Liverpool lost each of their next four — the losses to Community Shield conquerors Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Manchester United rolling out their Achilles heel of conceding late result-altering goals.
Following their flying start, Liverpool won 12 and lost 12 of the subsequent 33 Premier League matches. Last year’s repeat of four winless games to finish the season was repeated, but there was still something to play for this time, as they just got over the line to secure the additional Champions League spot.
In Europe’s top competition, Liverpool’s 4-0 last-16 win over Galatasaray, with Slot already under mounting pressure, proved a false dawn. While they were competitive with PSG last season, they were swept aside by the same opponents 4-0 on aggregate this time – another stark demonstration of regression for a team that accrued 24 fewer points in the Premier League than they did a year ago.
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‘Winning’ the transfer window
We all remember the famous photo of Paris Saint-Germain’s fantasy football signings of summer 2021. Lionel Messi, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos and others all through the door
«Best transfer window ever. Incredible,» honked journalist-cum-transfers-influencer Fabrizio Romano on Twitter. Within a year, PSG fans were booing Messi at the Parc des Princes after another Champions League failure.
«Winning the transfer window» is rarely all it’s cracked up to be. In summer 2026, Liverpool were the undisputed champions of the market. Florian Wirtz, one of the premier talents in Europe, arrived for a British record £116.5 million from Bayer Leverkusen. That record was smashed again when Alexander Isak’s transfer saga ended with a £125m move from Newcastle. Throw in Hugo Ekitike’s £79m capture from Eintracht Frankfurt, and Slot had made three of the four most expensive signings in Liverpool history in one summer.
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There was more to commend as Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez came in as full-back replacements for the outgoing Trent Alexander-Arnold and the ageing Andy Robertson.
In the Community Shield against Crystal Palace, Wirtz claimed a fourth-minute assist for Ekitike before a marauding Frimpong scored a fortuitous second. All seemed rosy in the garden.
A frantic 4-2 win over Bournemouth on the Premier League’s opening weekend, sealed by late goals from Federico Chiesa and Mohamed Salah, painted a more foreboding picture. Liverpool were wide open defensively. For all the criticism of Alexander-Arnold’s tendency to switch off at key moments, Slot’s entire set-up was imbalanced by not having him filling in midfield pockets to guard against counter-attacks.
Frimpong’s natural game is to bomb forward, and by the end of the season, he was being used more often as an out-and-out right winger. He also suffered dreadfully with injuries. By contrast, Kerkez played and played through error after error in a tough acclimatisation.
That can happen with new signings at mid-range prices. It’s less acceptable with the cost in excess of £100m. Wirtz, a numbers machine at Leverkusen, took an age to register a Premier League goal contribution. Undoubtedly a player very easy on the eye, he still has a style-over-substance argument to win under Slot’s successor. Ekitike did well, so well that you wondered why Liverpool had to bother with the Isak fiasco, until injury struck.
The Sweden star trying to force through a move to Liverpool was the story of the summer. It led to him being isolated from his Newcastle teammates and without a proper pre-season. Lo and behold, Isak has suffered repeated injuries and looked woefully short of match sharpness. He scored three Premier League goals. A mess predominantly of Liverpool’s making.
All the while, the centre of defence needed attention that it didn’t get. This was not for the want of trying, when Marc Guehi’s deadline day move from Palace collapsed. Still, it was staggering to see Liverpool on the sidelines when Manchester City swooped for the England defender in January. Over-worked captain Virgil van Dijk ploughed on alongside the accident-prone Ibrahima Konate.
Slot and Salah fallout
Salah enjoyed the greatest season of his truly great Liverpool career in 2024/25, driving the team relentlessly to the Premier League title. The fall from then to now, for both him and Slot, is truly staggering when you zoom out.
A reconfigured attack, missing the running power of Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota’s intelligent pressing, did not provide a platform for Salah, whose prolific form fell away. Without a goal for more than a month, he was an unused substitute for the dramatic 3-3 draw at Leeds in December. Despite being an unused substitute at Elland Road, Salah made a beeline for reporters in the mixed zone and launched an astonishing broadside against his coach and the Anfield hierarchy.
It is not acceptable for me. I don’t know why this is happening to me. I don’t get it. I think if this was somewhere else, every club would protect its player. How I see it now is like, you throw Mo under the bus because he is the problem in the team now. But I don’t think I am the problem. I have done so much for this club. The respect, I want to get. I don’t have to go every day fighting for my position because I earned it. I am not bigger than anyone, but I earned my position. It’s football. It is what it is.
On Slot, Salah added: «There’s no relationship between us. It was [a] very good relationship and now all of a sudden there is no relationship.»
Salah went as far as to infer that the following weekend’s home match against Brighton might be his last for the club as he prepared to depart for the African Cup of Nations with Egypt.
He was reintegrated fairly unfussily on his return, and a goal in April’s 2-1 derby victory at Everton fittingly proved to be his last in the red shirt. By that point, Salah and Liverpool had agreed to part company despite him having another year remaining on his contract. It felt like a backing of Slot, who subsequently made himself unbackable.
In a last barb at his beleaguered coach, Salah posted on social media following the defeat at Aston Villa this month. He said:
I have witnessed this club go from doubters to believers, and from believers to champions. It took hard work and I always did everything I could to help the club get there. Nothing makes me prouder than that
Us crumbling to yet another defeat this season was very painful and not what our fans deserve. I want to see Liverpool go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear and back to being a team that wins trophies.
That is the football I know how to play and that is the identity that needs to be recovered and kept for good. It cannot be negotiable and everyone that joins this club should adapt to it.
From the clear evocation of Klopp with his reference to «heavy metal» football, to mentioning Liverpool’s identity and the need for outsiders – Salah joined Liverpool seven years before Slot did – to adapt to that, the message was clear.
One of Liverpool’s greatest ever players was saying the Liverpool manager was not up to his job. A couple of weeks on, the Anfield hierarchy showed they agree with the departing hero, along with a growing bulk of fan sentiment.
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