The parallels are undeniable.
Rewind to May 2015 and Liverpool were limping towards the finish line. An under-pressure manager was haemorrhaging support, with standards on the field having plummeted from the heights reached in the previous campaign.
Disillusioned fans were leaving Anfield early in their droves and the calls for change were growing ever louder. With three games to go, they drew 1-1 with Chelsea before the wheels came off spectacularly. A 3-1 home defeat by Crystal Palace in Steven Gerrard’s Anfield farewell was followed by a 6-1 humiliation at Stoke City.
“A lot has happened this year that has made the job difficult,” Brendan Rodgers told reporters after a sixth-placed finish and Europa League football was confirmed. “They have every right to be angry and frustrated, and I take full responsibility. There’s an awful lot of work to do and the job is now to go and fix that, and make sure we come back with a motivation greater than ever to push on next season.”
Eleven years ago, owner Fenway Sports Group (FSG) ignored the outside noise and resisted the temptation to sack the Northern Irishman. Despite Rodgers having not won a trophy during his three years at the helm, they decided he had sufficient credit in the bank, having led Liverpool agonisingly close to Premier League title glory in 2013-14.
Their faith that he would revive the club’s fortunes with the help of a few shrewd additions in the summer transfer window proved horribly misplaced. Rodgers couldn’t shake off the cloak of negativity that had enveloped his Anfield reign and within three months of the following season starting, he was gone, with Liverpool on 12 points from eight matches and 10th in the Premier League.
FSG will imminently face a similarly big decision over the fate of Arne Slot. Everything up until now has pointed to them standing by the Dutchman. There is sympathy with what he’s had to contend with this season — from the loss of Diogo Jota last July to the succession of crushing injury setbacks.
Unlike Rodgers, Slot is a Premier League title-winner and should still salvage Champions League qualification from the wreckage of this campaign.
But the mutinous mood inside Anfield on Saturday sent a clear message to the hierarchy about the scale of the unrest. It felt like this was the day when patience truly snapped. A Liverpool manager hadn’t faced this level of dissent on home turf since the final throes of Roy Hodgson’s tenure in late 2010.
The boos rained down from the stands at the sight of 17-year-old winger Rio Ngumoha, who had set up the opening goal for Ryan Gravenberch, being substituted midway through the second half. Supporters had expected the ineffective Cody Gakpo to make way for Alexander Isak.
Slot explained that Ngumoha, who has yet to complete 90 minutes at first-team level, had been suffering from cramp after being handed only his third league start.
“I knew the moment Rio’s number went up that would be the reaction, but that’s not a reason not to do it and keep a player in the team that tells me he cannot continue,” he said.
More boos followed at the final whistle as Anfield delivered a withering assessment of what had been served up. The empty seats by the end pointed to apathy but the overriding emotion was anger.
Liverpool fans’ patience with Arne Slot is wearing thin (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Asked if he truly believed he could win back the support of those who have turned against him, Slot said: “Yes, I do. Not this season, by the way.
“This season, they will have their opinion and it will not change. But if we can have the summer that we are planning to have, then I’m 100 per cent convinced we will be a different team next season than we are now.”
The problem is that so much goodwill has been lost over the past nine months that if Slot stays put and then Liverpool’s form at the start of next season is patchy, things will turn toxic at Anfield very quickly.
And if the decision-makers at FSG find themselves having to make a change mid-season, as they did in 2015, the calibre of candidates available is highly unlikely to be comparable to those out of work this summer. Xabi Alonso, who would be a popular choice among supporters, will surely be in a new job. There certainly won’t be a saviour in the mould of Jurgen Klopp waiting to pick up the pieces, as he did 11 years ago.
Of course, amid all the glory, there were a couple of torrid seasons under Klopp. But when Liverpool’s defence of the Premier League title fell to pieces in 2020-21 due to a centre-back injury crisis and then they trailed home fifth in 2022-23, the collective feeling was always that the situation would be even worse without Klopp. Belief in him was unwavering.
That’s not the case with Slot, who doesn’t have the same kind of stature or bond with the fanbase. There’s also a massive disconnect between what supporters expect to see from a Liverpool side and the brand of football the former Feyenoord boss is repeatedly serving up.
Chelsea arrived at Anfield in crisis, having suffered six successive league defeats. When Gravenberch struck inside six minutes, Liverpool had the perfect platform to kick on, go for the jugular and exploit the Londoners’ frailties.
Inexplicably, they took their foot off the gas. As sporting director Richard Hughes watched on from the directors’ box, the hosts retreated and allowed Chelsea time and space to operate.
The home fans vented their spleen at the erratic Ibrahima Konate for putting his studs on the ball and slowing the game down. No urgency, no tempo, no intensity. Were they following orders? The alarm bells were ringing long before Enzo Fernandez equalised.
“Didn’t you see me screaming on the sidelines: ‘Go back! Go back! Defend your own box’,” Slot said sarcastically. “Of course that wasn’t the idea for us to back off. We wanted to keep going but we played against a team who got more and more comfortable on the ball.
“They didn’t have any wingers available, so they brought a lot of midfielders and they started to control the midfield, passing through us more and more. It didn’t lead to many chances but they were by far the dominant team in the game.
“At half-time, we changed things. We could press them high and keep them in their half. Not perfect because they could play through us a few times but not as much as in the first half.
“I don’t think it’s fair that anyone could ever think I tell my players to back off, drop deep and not to press. Either you haven’t seen my teams playing… it did look like we dropped deep — but that was never the intention. We just couldn’t control all their midfielders.”
Even accounting for the absentees due to injury, this was bleak. Liverpool had just three attempts on target and created an expected goals (xG) tally of just 0.56.
Gakpo had six touches in the first half and won one out of five duels before he was finally hauled off. His needless offside ensured Curtis Jones’ celebrations were cut short after nodding home. Jeremie Frimpong was a tough watch down the right.
The midfield was a mess, with Alexis Mac Allister winning one out of nine duels, Dominik Szoboszlai one of seven and Gravenberch five of 11.
Szoboszlai and Virgil van Dijk hit the woodwork but victory would have flattered the hosts. The howls of derision deep into stoppage time when Giorgi Mamardashvili caught the ball and nobody seemed interested in launching a late counter-attack encapsulated Liverpool’s problems.
The end of the season can’t come soon enough. There’s so much wrong and it requires a sizeable leap of faith to believe Slot can fix it.
