Things have reached the ugly stage. Just over 12 months on from becoming Premier League champions, Liverpool have somehow found themselves in a position where the manager and first team are getting booed off at Anfield.
In retrospect it’s something that seems unfathomable. In no world would it have seemed plausible. Add into the mix that Liverpool have also shelled out over £400 million on players – despite also selling heavily – and the whole situation becomes even more baffling and bitter.
Boos don’t happen at Anfield, the crowd doesn’t turn. It takes a hell of a lot. Unrest was heard in March when Richarlison was able to salvage an injury-time equaliser for the most meagre of Tottenham sides, but that was more a reactionary spill of tension.
What was heard against Chelsea on Saturday, both during the match and at the final whistle, was much more potent stuff.
The jeering of Rio Ngumoha‘s withdrawal along with a chorus of boos across all four corners after the 1-1 draw was confirmed solidified the overall temperature of the fanbase: Arne Slot and this current regime has lost the faith.
In response, the Dutchman doubled down on his belief that things can and will get better.
Asked post-match whether the booing supporters can expect things to turn around, Slot insisted: “Yeah. Not this season, by the way.
“This season, they will have their opinion, and they will not change. But if we can have the summer that we are planning to have, then I’m 100 percent convinced that we will be a different team next season than we are now.
“Different in terms of results, different in how things look. But it’s not always that simple, because sometimes you know what you have to do, but it’s not always possible to also get exactly what you want.
“But for us, for me, it’s really clear what we are lacking this season.”
Slot is putting himself in the last-chance saloon
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Saturday, April 25, 2026: Liverpool's head coach Arne Slot gives a thumbs up to the supporters after the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Crystal Palace FC at Anfield. Liverpool won 3-1. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
There is a growing disparity here between what the fans are feeling and what the club is looking towards, with little communication link between the two. This is crucial.
What is now happening makes little sense. Liverpool are constantly underperforming and the under-fire manager is only speaking in terms of remedies when put on the spot – typically by yet another news crew after more points have been dropped.
As a result, Slot is constantly pleading his case to an already incensed jury, all but putting himself in the last-chance saloon by default.
Right now, this is where the current man at the helm differs from predecessor Jurgen Klopp. Comparisons between the pair feel futile, and trying to match Klopp for communication skills is a fool’s errand.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Sunday, December 13, 2015: Liverpool's manager Jürgen Klopp and players thanking supporters after the Premier League match against West Bromwich Albion at Anfield. (Pic by James Maloney/Propaganda)
But Klopp set his stall out very early doors at Liverpool, showing himself to be a figure of authority who would be incredibly direct but also entirely transparent. If Klopp didn’t like things the fans were doing, they’d know about it.
Likewise, however, Klopp would be the first person to hold his hands up and clearly explain, in his non-native tongue, his methodology and how whatever teething period being endured would come to an end.
Slot instead has adopted this mantra of sighing off ill-fought performances, before sprinkling in a generous measure of hints that things aren’t how he would like them, but they soon will be.
It is this way of operating that has rubbed so many the wrong way, leaving the manager looking nonchalant at best and arrogant at worst.
The Klopp dynasty fought through the darkness, Slot’s men aren’t
PARIS, FRANCE - Wednesday, April 8, 2026: Liverpool's Ryan Gravenberch after the UEFA Champions League Quarter-Final 1st Leg match between Paris Saint-Germain FC and Liverpool FC at the Parc des Princes. The game ended 2-0. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
Comparison might be the thief of joy, but it’s necessary here.
The early days of the Klopp era saw an early plan in mind. The manager absolutely did not have the necessary tools to achieve this goal straight away, but one thing he did do was ensure the starting XI began playing in his image.
It took a matter of months for Klopp’s identity and style to take hold, irrespective of the fact it was being carried out by the likes of Alberto Moreno, Jordon Ibe and Christian Benteke.
These players were never going to be in the long-term Klopp vision, but the principles were unwavering.
Players like Gini Wijnaldum and Fabinho would become poster-boys of the Klopp ethos, but before them Adam Lallana and Lucas Leiva were already putting in the hard yards for the new German manager.
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - Wednesday, December 2, 2015: Liverpool's Divock Origi celebrates scoring the fourth goal against Southampton with team-mates Martin Skrtel, Lucas Leiva, Jordon Ibe, Alberto Moreno and Dejan Lovren during the Football League Cup Quarter-Final match at St. Mary's Stadium. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
When the plan is crystal clear, results can be achieved. It doesn’t matter who specifically is doing it, this has been proven in football time and time again.
But this season Slot appears hell bent on insisting that Liverpool aren’t equipped for what he wants to do, with the all-important addition of yet.
Injuries have ravaged the squad and the manager has to be cut some slack for this, but whether a Liverpool XI has been either depleted or in full health during the 2025/26 campaign, nobody knows what they’re getting.
There isn’t a system, there isn’t a fallback or a generally recognised way of playing.
To assume that this will all suddenly fall into place after a pre-season training camp and yet further upheaval with transfer arrivals and departures feels rather naive – especially in a World Cup summer when most of the squad will return late.
The problem is Slot has started to back himself into a corner.
A Premier League-winning manager who will forever be etched in Liverpool history is quickly – knowingly or otherwise – setting up a situation where the next campaign has to start red hot and be close to faultless from the first whistle.
Surely, among the big-thinking brains of the highly salaried men in the FSG boardrooms, there should be a general understanding that seeing Liverpool struggling, but playing in a uniformed way as the season reaches it curtain call, would create optimism.
Liverpool fans have nothing to get behind
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Saturday, May 9, 2026: Liverpool's head coach Arne Slot before the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC at Anfield. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
Fans can tolerate Liverpool underperforming if the green shoots of recovery and future potential are there. That gives them something to get behind, it gives them something to encourage and defend with that fierce pride that is known around the world.
Instead, very expensive and highly paid Liverpool players are being shuffled around on a weekly basis like a new lesson in damage limitation.
The manager isn’t communicating directly and there appears to be radio silence from above, hanging him out to dry.
This isn’t Liverpool, it’s certainly not what the club has been built on. Players now coming out in the media insisting they don’t deserve boos but they understand fan sentiment.
The true problem and the real reality right now is that nobody understands each other, at all. Slot’s reaction to the boos only serves to highlight this, and now the Liverpool boss is giving himself a mountain to climb.