After all the talk of a potentially difficult transition away from Jurgen Klopp, life at Anfield could hardly have started any better for Arne Slot.
A 1-0 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest in September was the only significant blot on Liverpool’s copybook in all competitions before the turn of the new year. As 2025 began, Slot’s side were eight points clear of Forest at the top of the Premier League table, and had won every single one of their Champions League and League Cup games.
It wasn’t just the results that were impressive, either. In those first few months, Slot’s side looked like a near-perfect synthesis of the methods that had worked so well under Klopp, and something new: more direct, more incisive, more clinical and incredibly ruthless.
Arne Slot has been unable to hold onto sensational start to life at Liverpool
To say things started going wrong from there would be an overstatement: Liverpool eased to the title, with a 3-2 loss away to Fulham their only major league hiccup until they had already wrapped up the title with four games to spare. We’re not going to hold it against them that they didn’t win any of those remaining games.
But there was a certain sense of their aura of near-invincibility slipping away. Plymouth dumped them out of the FA Cup. They blew it late on in the last-ever Merseyside derby to be played at Goodison Park, with James Tarkowski’s 98th-minute goal rescuing a point for Everton.
A rampant PSG gave them a serious reality check in the Champions League, and Liverpool were hugely in Alisson’s debt for taking it as far as penalties before they were eliminated.
The lowlight came at Wembley in the League Cup final in March. Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United were excellent on the day and ran out as worthy winners – but there was no question, either, that Liverpool completely and utterly failed to turn up.
All of this came against a backdrop of uncertainty about the futures of three key players. Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk ended up signing extensions; Trent Alexander-Arnold, however, waved goodbye and went to Real Madrid.
Liverpool showed over the summer transfer window that they were under no delusions that there had been a drop-off and that they needed to strengthen their squad if they wanted to compete more convincingly on more than one front this season.
A massive transfer outlay on big-name signings Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez, Hugo Ekitike, Giovanni Leoni and – finally – Alexander Isak spoke of their ambitions.
Yet the backslide from that awesome start under Slot has only continued. After losing the Community Shield to Crystal Palace, Liverpool won their first five games of the new Premier League season – but hardly in convincing fashion.
Slot’s side let a two-goal lead slip against Bournemouth on the opening day before roaring back to claim a late victory. They did exactly the same against the ten men of Newcastle United in the following game.
They again needed an injury-time winner – a penalty, at that – to beat ten-man Burnley, and an 85th-minute goal to see off Championship Southampton in the League Cup.
At that point, the concerns about Liverpool needing so many late shows after variously sloppy and underwhelming performances could be written off as them finding a way to win despite not playing very well. Isn’t that the hallmark of champions, after all?
Well… maybe. But losing back-to-back league games against Palace and Chelsea certainly isn’t. Those games confirmed two things: the feeling that Liverpool’s luck had to run out, and the inherent danger of leaving it so late to get those victories. As they learned to their cost, those injury-time goals can just as easily go the other way.
Throw in a limp defeat away to unfancied Galatasaray in between, and Slot finds himself in unprecedented territory.
There is no worse occasion to lose four in a row than at home to Manchester United.
The Dutchman had never lost three straight games as Liverpool manager before; he has now. Liverpool had not done that since March-April 2023 - and two of those games were against Real Madrid and Manchester City.
Klopp never lost four in a row as Liverpool manager; for the last time Liverpool hit such a poor run, you have to go all the way back to their awful start to the season under Brendan Rodgers in 2014/15, which was capped by November defeats to Newcastle, Real Madrid, Chelsea and Palace.
If things go wrong this weekend, Slot could match that unwanted losing streak – and there could be no worse occasion for it than at home to Manchester United.
We don’t want to act like we think that’s going to happen; Liverpool go in as favourites for very good reason. The smart money is on a home win.
But that’s all the more reason that if – if – that fourth defeat in a row were inflicted on Liverpool, Slot will face really serious scrutiny for the first time.
Having gone from near-invincible to fallible last season, and now dangerously dodgy at the start of this campaign, it would be next to impossible for Slot to defend himself against accusations that he has only taken his side backwards since that blistering start.
There’s any number of reasons the Dutchman might privately point to. His new signings have not yet had time to gel – almost the opposite situation to last year, when essentially his entire squad bar Federico Chiesa was inherited from Klopp.
The likes of Frimpong and Wirtz are still adapting, while Kerkez has shown he has a lot to learn about playing at the very elite level – but they might well get there in time. Isak is still settling in. Ekitike needs no excuses making for him after an impressive start.
It is entirely legitimate to say that the kind of form Liverpool hit in those first few months under Slot was never going to last forever.
At 34 years old, Virgil van Dijk remains a very good Premier League defender, but is nowhere near the level he was at five years ago. If 33-year-old Mohamed Salah has just had his last truly brilliant season for Liverpool, then so be it; every player has to wind down at some point.
Much as we’re cautious about trivialising it, we should also not ignore that Liverpool suffered the tragic loss of one of their key players this summer. Nobody on the outside can have any real comprehension of the toll Diogo Jota’s death might have taken on his team-mates or how it might continue to affect them; nor can any of us have anything but sympathy if it has impacted things on the pitch.
All of these are valid points – just as it is entirely legitimate to say that the kind of form Liverpool hit in those first few months under Slot was never going to last forever and that even the best managers – Klopp included – run into rough patches now and then.
But what makes Slot’s situation interesting is that it is the first time in his Liverpool career that he has had to deal with this kind of adversity on the pitch. That leaves us with no idea as to his ability to deal with it quickly and stop it from becoming a serious malaise.
They say you learn a lot about a person when the chips are down. We’re about to find out a lot about just what Slot is made of – starting at Anfield on Sunday.
From a Liverpool perspective, that might just make this the most compelling clash with Manchester United for years.
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