Liverpool's Season Ends with Uncertainty: Slot's Future in Question
Liverpool’s season is limping towards the line, but the real turbulence may only just be beginning.
Beat Brentford at Anfield on Sunday, or even just avoid defeat, and Arne Slot will secure fifth place and Champions League football. On paper, that should be a respectable return. In reality, it draws a line under a campaign that has felt flat, fractured and, for many inside the club, emotionally draining.
And as the curtain falls, the questions are already piling up.
Slot under scrutiny, Iraola in the frame
For weeks the message around Liverpool has been steady: Slot stays. Despite the underwhelming title defence, despite the stumbles, the Dutchman was expected to continue in charge next season.
Now that certainty is fraying.
Foot Mercato report that Fenway Sports Group are weighing up a dramatic change of course, exploring alternatives to Slot just as the season closes. Xabi Alonso, once the romantic choice for many supporters, was on that list before he committed to Chelsea.
Attention, the report claims, has turned to Andoni Iraola.
The Bournemouth manager has quietly built one of the stories of the season on the south coast. Sixth in the Premier League. A 17-match unbeaten run, the longest in the division. A team that presses with ferocity, attacks with courage and refuses to wilt.
He is leaving Bournemouth at the end of the campaign. That alone would have put half of Europe on alert. Liverpool, though, may feel they hold a trump card.
Richard Hughes, now Liverpool’s sporting director, is the man who originally took Iraola to Bournemouth during his time in the same role there. He knows the Spaniard’s methods, his temperament, his demands. If FSG do decide to move on from Slot, a reunion suddenly looks more than just a neat narrative.
There is, however, a counterpoint. The Athletic maintain that Liverpool’s stance on Slot is unchanged. Publicly, at least, there is no admission of doubt, no sign of a club already planning a handover.
So Liverpool head into the final day with a manager officially secure, yet surrounded by noise. A team one result away from Champions League qualification, yet overshadowed by talk of who might lead them next. And all of that before the summer’s biggest storm even hits.
Mohamed Salah is going. Andy Robertson is going. Two pillars of the Klopp era, two players who have defined Liverpool’s modern identity, set to walk away after nine years. Replacing their output is one task. Replacing their presence is another entirely.
Robertson lifts the lid on a broken season
While the boardroom wrestles with strategy, those on the pitch have been wrestling with something far more human.
Speaking on The Overlap with Ian Wright, Robertson offered a raw glimpse into the emotional weight Liverpool have carried this season. He spoke about the death of Diogo Jota and the impact it had on a dressing room that had grown so close.
“What happened in the summer with Diogo Jota… nobody could have prepared us for that,” he said. “The first time I saw my teammates again after the trophy parade was on the way to one of our mate's funeral.
“And I don't want to use this as an excuse, but we cannot hide away from this. It's been tough, and we can't hide away from this. Diogo Jota was one of our best mates.”
Those are not the words of a player hunting for alibis. They are the words of someone trying to explain why a group that once looked unbreakable suddenly seemed drained of its old relentlessness.
The hits kept coming. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s departure to Real Madrid stripped Liverpool not just of a unique playmaker, but of a local heartbeat.
“I think obviously we’ve missed him as a player, there’s no doubt about that,” Robertson admitted. “We’ve missed him as a character as well. But he’s went on to try something new and sometimes you just have to take your hat off to that.”
On the pitch, those absences have shown. The control in midfield, the precision from deep, the swagger in big moments – all have flickered rather than burned. Off it, the dressing room has had to recalibrate without some of its loudest voices and closest friendships.
That is the backdrop to this “disappointing season” Robertson references. Not just dropped points and missed chances, but grief, upheaval and the slow dismantling of a squad that scaled the very top.
A crossroads, not a reset
So Liverpool arrive at Sunday with a strange mix of jeopardy and inevitability.
Champions League qualification is almost in their hands. Even if they lose to Brentford, Bournemouth would need to overturn a six-goal swing at Nottingham Forest to deny them. It would take a collapse of historic proportions to go wrong from here.
Yet the real stakes lie beyond the final whistle.
Can Slot convince FSG he is the man to guide a post-Salah, post-Robertson Liverpool into a new era? Will Hughes push for Iraola, the coach he trusts, to front a more aggressive rebuild? How does a club that has lost Jota and Alexander-Arnold from its core, and will soon lose two more icons, rebuild not just a team but an identity?
The numbers will say Liverpool finished fifth and made it back to Europe’s top table. The story behind those numbers is far more complicated.
Sunday will close the book on this season. The next one will reveal whether this was a stumble on the way back to the summit – or the first sign of a team slipping into something far more uncertain.
