Liverpool's losses and Slot's Struggles - The Analysis

The Slot machine is no longer paying out

The hero to zero story is one we’re all familiar with and towards the top of the Premier League, we’re seeing it unfold again. Arne Slot’s first season in the Premier League saw him win it. A transition from legendary figure Jurgen Klopp to Slot? What transition? Fast forward two months from Liverpool’s 1-0 win over title rivals Arsenal, and it’s all fallen apart. The last-minute winners have disappeared, the weaknesses in their performances exploited, and Liverpool have lost four league games in a row. Not even a feat that Roy Hodgson managed in his time at Anfield. For Arne Slot, the questions are getting louder. In fact, they’re only now starting to be asked. Last season was such a classy transition, Slot was never doubted and never found himself receiving any criticism. Not now though. The Slot machine is no longer paying out. A man under pressure. Slot has a lot to sort.

Defensive vulnerabilities

What has gone wrong then? Well, first of all defensively Liverpool have been a mess. Ever since the first league game, where they let a 2-0 lead to Bournemouth evaporate and then had to go and win the game again 4-2. Liverpool look at sea on transitions, with teams easily able to split them open on counter attacks like a hot knife through butter. Brentford regularly cut them open on Saturday and Liverpool’s high-line was exploited time and time again. Slot has bemoaned long balls and low blocks as if they’re some sort of cruel, new invention. He admitted that his team practised defending long throws in the week before Brentford, before conceding from one within 5 minutes. Something’s gone wrong there.

Slot can’t be solely responsible for the fact that the stalwart partnership of Van Dijk and Konate can’t muster a good performance as a pair together. He also can’t be responsible for the blatant oversight in not giving Crystal Palace the reported additional £5m or so that would have been enough to sign Marc Guehi. The faffing about on that deal, whilst simultaneously paying £125m for Alexander Isak to bring him in alongside a new £65m striker does not look wise right now. However, Slot must restore some defensive solidity, whether that’s in the shape of dropping the defensive line 10 yards back, or providing Gravenberch in midfield with a companion.

Lack of attacking fluency

In attack, it’s not clicking for Liverpool. Spending around £320m on attacking talent has not yet produced any significant yield. We know, however, the talent is there. A fit and firing Alexander Isak IS one of the best strikers in world football. Florian Wirtz IS one of the best playmakers in the Premier League and despite some harsh criticism, leads all Premier League players for chances created and expected assists. Mohamed Salah WAS the best player in the league last season and had the best individual season recorded in Premier League history. So, why’s it not worked at all yet?

Slot has the unenviable, yet very enviable, dilemma of how best to assemble these powerful chess pieces. A front four of the aforementioned three, with Hugo Ekitike (who has looked the best of the new recruits) could work in my head. Wirtz off the left drifting in with Kerkez overlapping him, Ekitike and Isak dropping in and out in central areas and Mo Salah on the right attempting to do Mo Salah things.
Slot, however, has chopped and changed the front four. Taking out Ekitike for Isak in the defeats to Crystal Palace and Chelsea was a mistake given Ekitike’s form. Not rewarding super-sub Federico Chiesa with a start to replace either Cody Gakpo or the underperforming Salah is also a little baffling given Chiesa’s impact from the bench saw him win Liverpool’s player of the month, despite his limited minutes on the pitch.

It must be said that Slot is not solely to blame here. Salah’s form is worrying and Isak, through his own determination to force a move, simply didn’t have a pre-season and is playing catch up. It also was a club decision to let Luis Diaz leave and sell Darwin Nunez, and whilst the latter didn’t produce the numbers his transfer fee demanded, his off the ball pressing with Diaz is certainly missed by Liverpool this season. Embedding such attacking talent, all at once, takes time. Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike aren’t plug-in and play players, and patience is required. However, time is starting to run out to salvage Liverpool’s season. Such financial outlay means it has to click. Slot asked for “more weapons” at the end of last season but has yet to find a way to deploy them.

A steady decline

It’s all too easy to look at this Liverpool slump, and call it just that, a slump. 6 losses from 7, but before that they were winning games and had just won the title. However, the wider picture points to a larger malaise when you consider Liverpool have lost 12 out of their last 26 Premier League games in 2025. That’s not a slump, that’s not a bad patch, that’s a trend.

Granted, the Premier League was wrapped up in April and Liverpool took their foot off the pedal, however other losses in that time include a cup final loss to Newcastle and a wretched performance at Wembley, thoroughly being outplayed by PSG over two legs and cup exits to Plymouth and recently Crystal Palace. The recent defeat this week, where Slot heavily rotated to rest his men, now puts significant pressure on the next three games, Aston Villa, Real Madrid and Manchester City. Losing those three would be 9 losses in 10. Unthinkable. Potentially putting Slot in a very difficult position.

Whilst the results have been mediocre in 2025, so have the performances. Liverpool have rarely convinced and Slot even made reference to this at the end of last season stating he wants the team to win more games more convincingly, referencing too many 1-0 wins last season. The performances have, however, not been dominant and Liverpool have lost that gritty, aggressive edge that made them so good in the first two thirds of last season.

Identity crisis

Perhaps last season went too well. Winning a Premier League in your first season with consummate ease is not normal. Slot calmly spoke about how his team exploited weaknesses in the opposition. A calculated, calm persona who was neither cold or very warming with supporters. Long gone were the days of Klopp and the energy and connection he had with the Liverpool supporters. Slot almost came in like some sort of hired contractor. Fine when you’re winning. It’s cool, calculated, cold. When you’re not though, and the outside noise starts to grow, you need that bond with supporters to quash the exterior noise. Without that bond, the fans can turn on you.

On the pitch, though, is where Liverpool are lacking an identity this season. Changes in formations, personnel and ideas each game. Liverpool are not a settled team at the minute. The control, reliability and consistency of team selection and tactics last season have vanished and been replaced by this chaos-ball type football. 7 out of 10 of Liverpool’s Premier League games have been level at the 80-minute mark and subsequently decided by a goal either way in the last 10 minutes. That’s coin-flip football. Gambling. Title winners don’t gamble often. If you go into to the back stretch of games needing a winner, don’t be surprised when you get stung like at Crystal Palace, Chelsea and at home to Manchester United recently. All games were on the brink, Liverpool gambled and lost. You only have to look at Arsenal’s games to see how potential title winners win games. With control, poise and relative ease.

Liverpool’s XG in their games is always high, which usually points to a good performance.  And yet, it’s XG generated from sheer force and chaos, not sustainable periods of good play. The patterns of play are incoherent and lacking. The pattern of the game has been the same. Concede first, pile on forwards, desperately looking for an equaliser and then a winner, all whilst leaving the back door wide open for a sucker punch. Slot, a great chess player last season has turned into an all or nothing gambler.

Halloween was yesterday, and Slot looked spooked on the sideline at Brentford last weekend. The questions are being asked of Slot, and rightly so. Slot deserves the time to work this out but must show signs that he can fix this.