Jamie Carragher is backing Liverpool to progress through to the Champions League quarter-finals, but admits the manner in which their season has unfolded under Arne Slot is simply not good enough and with fans now fiercely turning the heat on the manager amid growing talk of the sack.
The Reds slipped to a 13th defeat of the season on Tuesday evening as they were tamely beaten 1-0 by Galatasaray in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie at Rams Park. While Liverpool can still avenge the loss in next week’s second leg and reach the quarter-finals, it proved another worryingly limp display from the Reds, who have rarely reached the heights of last season across Slot’s second year in charge.
That has stacked the pressure on Slot, whose future will be assessed at the end of the season and with TEAMtalk revealing on Tuesday that the club’s overlords, FSG, remain split on whether to back or sack the Dutchman and with Xabi Alonso – the man they initially targeted as Jurgen Klopp’s successor – casting a large shadow over Anfield.
Now Carragher admits this season has been far from good enough, and feels Slot deserves to carry the can.
“I still think Liverpool will go through, but this is a worry for the manager and the team,” Carragher said on CBS Sports.
“What we saw tonight is what we saw early on in the group stages away in Galatasaray.
“This team is just a million miles off where it was supposed to be this season, which was that we’d be talking about them in the same light as Bayern Munich right now.
“That was the whole point of Liverpool spending over £400 million in the summer, to go the next step from winning the Premier League to going to win the Champions League.
“And we’re talking about a team who have now got to change a deficit against Galatasaray.
“I think they will, but I don’t have any hope for Liverpool going any further than that if it’s Paris Saint-Germain in the next round, which I think it may be.
“That for me is a big worry. It’s not just the defeat; I think the performances from Liverpool this season are a big worry for the manager.
“I think I said on this show in the group stages that he’s got to do something, he’s got to change something. He’s tried everything!
“Nothing seems to be able to work and at no stage in this season have I ever felt Liverpool were in control of a football match.
“It’s either end-to-end basketball, so he wanted to stop that and change that, and then it’s just become slow and boring and predictable.
“If another manager could come in straight away, I don’t think it dramatically changes. I really do think the makeup of the squad, how it’s been put together, the lack of options in certain areas, is a big problem as well.
“So it’s not just all about the manager. But as we know, managers carry the can.”
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Arne Slot sack? Liverpool fans have seen enough with eight faults named
While Carragher has offered a more balanced outlook on Slot’s future, it seems their supporters have seen enough after Tuesday’s limp display in Istanbul.
Taking out their frustrations across social media, Reds supporters appear to have seen enough from the manager.
Writing on X, one fan wrote: ‘This is just a shambles. It doesn’t just look like a team that has ever played together before, but a team that have never played the sport before.
‘No control, no intensity, no patterns of play. We’re an awful team at times, for the level of quality these players have.’
In reply, another commented: ‘The biggest criticism I can give of this team is that I hate watching them. I don’t like them as a team at all. That all comes from the manager. Klopp took poor players and made them great with coaching, Slot has done the exact opposite.’
Another stated: ‘I’ve lost every ounce of copium I had for the rest of the season. Players just look lost and confused. What even is a Slot system? Setting up a 4-2-4 at goal kicks, mate, honestly, what even is going on? No chance we get anything from this game.’
A fourth was also unhappy at the brand of football on offer, adding: ‘We just play long balls now from the backline, which line, which get turned over and comes straight back at us on the counter attack, and we now rely on set pieces to win games. We have turned into a Sean Dyche Burnley team!’
Another observed: ‘We created some really good chances.. but we were rubbish at everything else. Goes back to Slot not being able to balance this team.
‘When we attack well, we can’t defend well; when we defend well, we don’t attack. Not the worst result, but a lot to do at Anfield.’
One fan also pinpointed Liverpool’s failures under Slot to eight specifics, having observed: ‘We struggle against low blocks; we struggle against high lines; we struggle against a high press; we struggle against a deep defence; we struggle against quick wingers; we struggle against strong strikers; we struggle against set-pieces; we just struggle across the board…!’
Latest Liverpool news: Xabi Alonso denials; Van de Ven plan crushed
Meanwhile, Fabrizio Romano has provided an insightful update on the “very positive feelings” between the Reds’ preferred successor to Slot in the hotseat, having provided an update on Xabi Alonso’s prospects of taking on the Liverpool job.
The Italian’s update comes less than 24 hours after we provided an exclusive update on the Spaniard and moved to deny claims that an agreement had already been reached for Alonso to take charge.
However, the Reds’ board appear to be torn over which direction to move in this summer and with the next few months critical to determining Slot’s future.
On the transfer front, clarification has arrived on reports that an elite Tottenham star could be Anfield-bound this summer, while the player in question has opened up on his mental well-being in the wake of his side’s woeful form.
Elsewhere, reports in Spain are suggesting that one of the Reds’ more celebrated stars has told Liverpool that he would like to leave the club in the summer, with Real Madrid and, more fancifully, Manchester United reportedly interested in a deal.
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