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The Liverpool Offside 2025-26 Season Preview, Part 1: Arne Slot’s Second Season
It’s probably fair to say that Arne Slot’s first year in charge at Liverpool went better than anyone was expecting. Nobody seriously thought the clearly talented but relatively unknown manager of Feyenoord would walk into one of Europe’s top jobs, replace a legend, and cruise to the Premier League title while playing a brand of football that felt both a continuation of and effective tweaking to Jürgen Klopp’s highly successful Anfield formula.
Not everything went perfectly, of course. The team seemed to run out of gas late and got an unlucky Champions League knockout draw that took a little shine off things for a side that for a time was being talked up as Europe’s best. The Reds also benefitted from a down year for Manchester City. With a bit of time and perspective now on season one, we wanted to reflect on what was achieved—and dig a little into just what our hopes, concerns, and expectations are for Liverpool the manager in year two of the Slot Era.
Just about everything that could have gone right in Arne Slot’s first season did go right, resulting in Liverpool FC lifting their 20th league title and cementing themselves back atop their perch as England’s most successful club.
Liverpool’s near-perfection, coupled with Arsenal and Manchester City’s inability to keep up, meant the Premier League title looked like something of a foregone conclusion as early as February and March. However, clear signs of accumulated fatigue clearly began to show late on, especially against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League and Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final.
Slot has been careful not to throw players under the bus during his time here, but there were gentle hints that he might have wanted to rotate more only didn’t fully trust the lower rung of the squad enough. With the players we’ve brought in this summer, hopefully that means there are now more players in the squad that he does trust and the team will be able to rotate more effectively and go deeper in other competitions.
Liverpool manager Arne Slot gives instructions to Conor Bradley, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch during the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London. Picture date: Wednesday January 8, 2025. (Photo by Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
Liverpool manager Arne Slot gives instructions to Conor Bradley, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch during the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London. Picture date: Wednesday January 8, 2025. (Photo by Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images)
Arne Slot inherited an extremely talented and settled squad last season that was likely in need of a fresh voice and new perspective. He proved to be a strong and effective communicator as he made it clear what he desired for different players and different roles. He proved to have an eye for talent as he helped Ryan Gravenberch quickly settle into a deeper role where the Dutch midfielder thrived.
While last year had a dream start that saw the club run through everyone like a buzzsaw for the first six months, there were still indications that Slot didn’t have the trust in many of the rotational and reserve players, leading to some very tired legs and poor performances as Liverpool wrapped up the Premier League title. Slot also never really seemed to find what he was looking for in the central striker role in the squad, frequently relying on winger Luis Diaz to play in that spot.
Last season was about setting the baseline for Slot’s desired style, but this season will really be an interesting look into the direction he wants to go in. Plenty of cash has been splashed to refresh the squad and set Slot up to take things to the next level (hopefully). While it may take some time for all of the players to truly and fully get settled and integrated, I do think we’ll see a clearer picture of what Slot is looking for in his fullbacks and at the central striker position. I also hope we’ll see more rotation throughout the squad in the early season to hopefully allow for a deeper run in the Champions League and more even performances later in the season.
I’ve not been this excited for a new season in a long, long time. It’s not just the shiny new toys, although they are shiny and new–and Florian Wirtz in particular appears to be living up to the hype already–but rather the idea that Arne Slot will begin transitioning Klopp’s Liverpool into his own in front of our very eyes.
As for expectations, the challenge in the early part of the season will be to temper them. Our players could take a while to bed in, injuries could happen, bad draws leading to early departures from various competitions, etc. The ball is still round, after all. That said, if we’re not competing for the league and well into the latter rounds of the Champions League knockout rounds, something has gone very wrong this season.
We also might need to be patient if Liverpool are not running away from the pack by Christmas, as was the case last season. The Reds play all the other English teams who have qualified for the Champions League within the first 11 league matches, and 3 of them are away from home. That is a brutal opening stretch however you come at it, and that’s without even talking about Everton and Manchester United, both of whom love coming to Anfield and playing for a draw (and occasionally getting it). However, if we get through that pretty brutal opening stretch at or near the top, watch out.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - AUGUST 04: Arne Slot, Manager of Liverpool, speaks with Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Assistant Head Coach of Liverpool speak during the second pre-season friendly match between Liverpool and Athletic Club Bilbao at Anfield on August 04, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)
It’s tough to set the bar by winning a league title and raising expectations that the personnel on hand is good enough to beat any team in Europe on their day, but that’s exactly what Slot did in year one. Yes, the team he helmed was a generous gift left behind by Jurgen Klopp, but he’s still the one who was tasked with and then managed to guide them to glory.
Now, with the flurry of activity during the transfer window, the club have fully and officially stepped into a new era. Wirtz, Frimpong, Kerkez, and Ekitike all here. The club is clearly still angling for Alexander Isak. There will be a new centre half who arrives. Ambitions and expectations are high and with them we’re seeing a version of Liverpool we’ve not been accustomed to.
I don’t think we’ll manage to win the league on the trot even if we’re better than last season, but that’s more down to expecting Man City to rebound from a down year than anything else. But I do think that we’re going to give our title defence a proper go, and I expect us to make a deep run in all of the competitions we play a role in.
It’s all on Slot now to figure out how to take the reloaded squad—clearly his squad, now—and mold it into a title-winning side. Thankfully, there’s a solid core of players still there who can help guide the new members and show them what it’ll take to win.
Liverpool’s year one of the Slot Era had so much good to grab on to. The re-focus on possession and resting on the ball at least situationally, and a corresponding downtick in injuries that—at least tentatively—I’m willing to say that played a role in. The emergence of Ryan Gravenberch. Mo Salah having arguably his career-best season. A heartening pattern of impactful second half adjustments. Oh, and league title number twenty.
It’s probably also fair to say, though, that while things at the club were all going right and Slot obviously had a hand in most if not all of that, things outside his and the club’s control also seemed to really, really go Liverpool’s way last season. Just don’t let the Arsenal fans know I said that. Regardless, you can’t fairly talk about Liverpool’s success last year without also talking about Manchester City’s struggles. If Liverpool had won a domestic cup or gone further in the Champions League, it might be easy to wave that away. But they didn’t.
So while it feels a little wild to be questioning anything at all after winning the title, we still don’t really know how an Arne Slot side would react in a genuine title race that sees them trading blows with a City-level heavyweight opponent into the final month of the season. We will also need to see if, a year on and some very heavy turnover in the transfer window later, Slot now has depth options that he can trust and that will allow Liverpool to execute at a high level from start to finish rather than peaking in the autumn as they appeared to last year.
Liverpool were very, very good last season. They will need to be even better this time around to defend league title number 20. They will need to be even better this time around to progress further in the Champions League. They will need to be even better this time around to avoid slip-ups and stumbles in the cups. And there have been a lot of changes to the squad now, with more new signings expected. I firmly believe Arne Slot will prove to us that 2024-25 wasn’t a fluke—but proving that, it seems to me, is the goal for 2025-26.