There is a predictability about how Arne Slot’s time as Liverpool’s head coach will end, so why delay the inevitable until the summer?
The Reds are a bad watch this season. It is painful on an almost weekly basis.
Tuesday’s 1-0 defeat away to Galatasaray in the Champions League was the latest slop that Liverpool served up, with a lack of quality at both ends of the pitch, as well as poor fitness and a weak mentality.
How many times do we have to watch this type of performance this season?
Liverpool are producing sporadic wins – enough to keep them in three competitions – but a woeful display is always around the corner, as Tuesday showed.
Players are bullishly promising improvements in interviews, but so often, what comes next is a match full of all the many flaws we have seen throughout the campaign.
As is the case with any football manager, the buck stops with him.
Slot will always be appreciated by Liverpool fans for his Premier League title win last season, when many expected it to be a straight fight between Manchester City and Arsenal.
Having produced such a brilliant achievement, though, prior to spending big in the summer, Slot and Liverpool have gone backwards at an alarming rate.
They are a poorly coached outfit who are being out-battled, out-finished and out-worked by too many opponents, while a host of individuals are way below their best, from Ibrahima Konate to Alexis Mac Allister to Mohamed Salah, to name just a few.
At this point, it feels inevitable that Liverpool will sack Slot at the end of the season, with some reports even suggesting that an agreement is in place to bring in former midfielder Xabi Alonso.
But why wait until then when there is still an outside chance of the Reds securing silverware this season? And a chance they could miss out on the Champions League next term?
That won’t happen with Slot at the helm, with a Champions League and FA Cup exit feeling likely to happen as soon as they come up against something even closely resembling a good team.
Instead, Liverpool should decide to sack Slot now and bring in an interim in the mould of Steven Gerrard, in order to bring a feel-good factor back to the club, and spring certain players into life.
This is NOT to say that Gerrard or similar should be the Reds’ next permanent boss – far from it – but Michael Carrick has shown at Manchester United how a former player who is respected can make a short-term difference.
Sure, Liverpool are still unlikely to become European champions under any manager this season, but Gerrard would at least freshen up a team that has gone stagnant, prior to Alonso coming in.
Liverpool's Dutch manager Arne Slot reacts during the UEFA Champions League round of 16 first leg football match between Galatasaray SK and Liverpool FC at the Ali Sami Yen Sports Complex in Istanbul on March 10, 2026.
The odd win here and there shouldn’t change things, before too much optimism returns after a likely win against the shambles that is Tottenham this weekend!
This is all wishful thinking, of course, and Liverpool remain highly unlikely to make a final decision on Slot until the summer.
But there is too much evidence to suggest that he has taken the Reds as far as he can, and it is pointless throwing away the rest of the season just to wait for the obvious.
Any manager should still be able to secure a top-five finish for Liverpool, which is the absolute bare minimum this season, and who’s to say a stopgap couldn’t spring a shock in Europe?
As mentioned, Slot’s achievements last season should never be downplayed, and he is a likeable figure, but his race is run, and he surely won’t be in charge come August, barring a miracle.