Gary Lineker Suggests Xabi Alonso as Potential Successor to Arne Slot at Liverpool
The questions around Arne Slot are no longer whispered. They are being asked out loud, and by some of the biggest voices in the game.
Gary Lineker has become the latest to cast doubt on the Liverpool manager’s long‑term future, openly suggesting that Xabi Alonso could be in the Anfield dugout next season.
Slot’s first title defence has unravelled into a bruising 2025/26 campaign. Liverpool remain in the Champions League places, but the numbers bite: eleven Premier League defeats and, most recently, a chaotic 3-2 loss to Manchester United at Old Trafford that has dragged the Dutchman back under the spotlight.
Three straight league wins had eased the noise. United turned the volume back up.
On The Rest is Football podcast, Lineker did not dance around the issue.
“Would Slot be there next season? Eleven defeats in the Premier League, still in the Champions League positions,” he said to Alan Shearer and Micah Richards. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Xabi Alonso was there next season.”
A simple line. A big implication.
Shearer backs Slot – but understands the scrutiny
Shearer, who knows exactly what it is to live and die by a dugout’s results, offered a more sympathetic take on Slot’s situation while still acknowledging the tension around the club.
“I think in terms of what he did last season and winning the league, manager of the season. With the issues and the problems they've had at Liverpool this year, then yeah, I do,” he said when asked if Slot deserves to stay. “If it were my choice, I would have him as manager, yeah.”
That is the crux of the debate. Last season’s champion, this season’s target. The Premier League rarely allows much space between the two.
Alonso’s shadow over Anfield
Alonso’s name has hovered over Liverpool ever since Jürgen Klopp announced his planned exit in January 2024. Back then, the Spaniard was in the middle of a glittering spell with Bayer Leverkusen, turning them into one of Europe’s most watchable sides and a natural candidate for any elite job.
Liverpool looked. So did others. Alonso instead stepped into the hottest of hot seats, replacing Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid last summer. The marriage did not last. He was sacked earlier this year, and that decision has placed him firmly back on the market at the exact moment Liverpool’s project under Slot has started to creak.
Lineker’s comment, then, is not wild speculation. It taps into a feeling that has never quite gone away on Merseyside: that Alonso, the former midfield metronome of the Rafa Benitez era, is destined to return one day.
Richards turns the heat on Liverpool’s signings
While the conversation circled around the manager, Micah Richards aimed his criticism elsewhere. For him, the scrutiny must fall on the recruitment and the players who have not delivered.
“I think where the scrutiny comes is the signings. They've not worked,” he said, before running through the list. “[Alexander] Isak has been injured, Wirtz has not been at the level we all expect, Frimpong is your right winger, your right-back, it's not really working out.
“[Milos] Kerkez has been a shadow of the player who was at Bournemouth. I don't know if that's pressure or if that's the system.”
As Richards spoke, Shearer could be seen nodding along. The verdict was blunt, and hard to argue with.
The profile of those signings was supposed to push Liverpool into a new cycle, modernising the team after the Klopp era without losing its edge. Instead, injuries, inconsistency and tactical misfits have left Slot with a squad that looks disjointed, not re-energised.
“Too slow, too passive”
Richards did not stop at individual names. He went after the identity of the side.
“Liverpool are too slow, too passive, they're too easy to play against,” he said. “What you normally associate Liverpool with is being aggressive, hard to beat, work-rate, especially under Klopp and they're none of those things. I'd like the manager to get a chance to turn those things around.”
That last line matters. Even as he dismantled the performances, Richards argued for patience with Slot. The criticism is sharp, but it is not a call for the axe. Not yet.
Still, the contrast he drew with Klopp’s Liverpool is damning. The club built its recent era on ferocity and relentlessness. Right now, they look like a side caught between that old identity and a new one that has yet to take shape.
Salah’s looming farewell
Layered over all of this is the emotional weight of Mohamed Salah’s impending departure. The forward, who came to embody Klopp’s Liverpool as much as anyone, is set to leave Anfield at the end of the season.
He missed the defeat to United through injury but is expected to feature in the final three games. A farewell lap, if his body allows it, at a time when the club is trying to work out what comes next on and off the pitch.
Alexander Isak and Alisson were also absent at Old Trafford, stripping yet more quality from a team already short on confidence. After the game, Slot offered a cautious update.
“Alisson hasn't trained with us yet, so that makes it quite simple,” he said. “We're hoping for him to be ready next week, but we have to wait and see how the week will go. The same can be said about Alex - we're hoping to have him back next week.”
Hope. Wait. See. Not words any manager wants to lean on in the run‑in.
A club at a crossroads
So Liverpool head into the final stretch of the season with their title defence gone, their star forward on his way out, key signings under fire and their manager’s future being debated on national platforms.
Slot still has the backing of some heavyweights, at least in principle. The league table still shows Liverpool in the Champions League places. The season is not a write-off.
But when Gary Lineker can casually drop Xabi Alonso’s name as a potential successor and nobody blinks, it tells its own story.
The question now is not just whether Slot can drag this campaign over the line. It is whether Liverpool believe he is still the man to lead the next one.
