Arne Slot’s Liverpool project has hit its first real storm, and Steven Gerrard can see the clouds gathering over Anfield.
A summer outlay of £446 million was supposed to launch Liverpool into a new era, not leave them staring up at Arsenal from a 21-point chasm. Instead, Slot’s second season has stalled, the Champions League places are slipping from view, and one of the club’s greatest modern icons is openly worried about where this is heading.
Gerrard, speaking on talkSPORT, did not bother with diplomacy.
“I think if the ownership and the people above, they see that gap, the Villa and United stretches or gets any worse, I worry for the manager's position,” he said. “I don't want to see that happen. I'm a huge fan of Arne Slot. I was blown away by his first season.”
That is the tension at the heart of Liverpool’s current crisis. Admiration for the coach. Alarm at the numbers. A club built on competing for titles now scrambling just to cling to the Champions League race.
Fulham and PSG: A defining five days
Gerrard pinpointed a brutally short timeframe for Slot to steady the ship.
For him, it starts with Fulham.
“I think the key to this situation will be the Fulham game,” he insisted. If Liverpool can crank up the pressure on Manchester United and Aston Villa, if they can “stay in the PSG game into next week,” he believes the mood changes quickly. Five or six days to turn anxiety into belief.
But the flip side is stark.
“If this was to get any worse, I'd be worried for the manager, I must say.”
That is not a throwaway line. Gerrard knows the temperature of Anfield, the expectations of the fanbase, the ruthlessness that can sit behind the romanticism. A 21-point gap to Arsenal, combined with a failure to reach the Champions League, would test the patience of any ownership group, no matter how much they admire Slot’s work to date.
City defeat exposes a deeper problem
What really shook Gerrard was not just losing to Manchester City. It was how Liverpool lost, and what followed.
“They had the chances, which they never took,” he said, cutting straight to the heart of elite-level football. Against the very best, you get a handful of moments. You take them, or you pay.
City were “outstanding over the course of the game,” Gerrard acknowledged. That is no crime; Pep Guardiola’s side have done that to plenty of teams. The real concern lay in Liverpool’s response once the tide turned.
“It was really worrying and concerning the way Liverpool did crumble,” he admitted.
Crumble. That is not a word usually associated with Liverpool in the modern era, certainly not by someone as emotionally tied to the club as Gerrard. Under Jürgen Klopp, resilience became part of the identity. Games were rarely surrendered, even when the football misfired. This felt different.
Words that cut deeper than the scoreline
If the performance raised questions, the post-match reaction set off alarms.
Gerrard revealed that some of the players’ comments after the defeat bothered him more than the result itself. Suggestions from within the dressing room that there was “no fight,” that Liverpool had “gave the game up,” struck him as completely at odds with the club’s core values.
“At Liverpool football club, that can't happen on the pitch,” he said, “and it certainly can't be said off the pitch, so worrying times, I must say.”
Those words go beyond tactics or team selection. They touch on mentality, on standards, on what it means to wear the shirt. When a figure like Gerrard hears players talk about a lack of fight, it is not just a bad day at the office. It is a warning sign.
Slot arrived to huge excitement, and his first season justified the hype. The squad has been heavily backed, the resources are there, the talent is undeniable. Yet Liverpool now stand at a crossroads: drifting in the league, under scrutiny in Europe, and facing a critical stretch that could shape the manager’s future.
Fulham first. PSG after that. Two games, one clear question: can this Liverpool side show the steel Gerrard demands, or will the doubts around Slot harden into something far more dangerous?
