Six months on from delivering Liverpool’s 20th league title, Arne Slot has been told he could soon be ‘under pressure’ at Anfield.
The 47-year-old is currently having to navigate his first prolonged slump as the Reds’ head coach, with four successive defeats in all competitions seeing a five-point Premier League advantage over Arsenal turned into a four-point deficit on the current leaders.
Some of the Dutchman’s tactical and line-up decisions have come under fierce scrutiny amid the team’s loss of form, while Chris Bascombe delivered a damning comparison between the current LFC side and Ange Postecoglou’s hara-kiri style of play at Tottenham Hotspur.
Slot could soon ‘be under pressure’ if slump continues
Speaking to Football Insider (via CaughtOffside), ex-Manchester United chief scout Mick Brown claimed that the pressure on Slot will be ramped up after Liverpool lost at home to the Red Devils on Sunday, although he’s backed the tactician to turn things around.
He said: “If any team loses four games in a row, they’re going to be concerned. Slot has done a brilliant job since taking over from Jurgen Klopp, they won the league last season and did very well, and I think they’re still clearly a good side.
“He says all the right things in the media, but with the drop in form and performances they’ve had recently, there will be people who aren’t happy, especially after a massive game like the one against United which they always want to win.
“That’s always the way when you’re managing a club the size of Liverpool. You’re expected to win every game, so losing four in a row is not good enough. The fans will see that, and the board will as well, and they’ll be expecting those results to pick up sooner rather than later.
“Sometimes it’s difficult, things start to drop off and you can’t quite put your finger on why, and things just don’t seem to be clicking for Liverpool right now. They’ll pick it up and get back to the form they’ve shown before, I’m sure of that, but the manager probably needs it to happen sooner rather than later or he’ll be under pressure.”
Slot not exempt from scrutiny but still has plenty of credit in the bank
Slot can’t keep dining out forever on last season’s Premier League triumph, something that he’ll undoubtedly realise, but he has more than enough credit in the bank despite the recent slump.
That doesn’t absolve him from criticism over some of his decisions of late, with too many line-up gambles simply not coming off and an inability to blend a group of top-class players into a cohesive unit on the pitch.
A team of Liverpool’s quality shouldn’t be losing four matches in a row, and even during the seven-game winning streak prior to that, there wasn’t one truly convincing 90-minute performance from the champions.
However, in Slot’s defence, he can’t legislate for some of the glaring chances that his players passed up against Man United on Sunday, and while it may sound trite, sometimes in the Reds’ current situation they simply need a lucky break to go their way and secure a morale-changing result.
Also, the 47-year-old will at least switch things up mid-game if a tactic or line-up decision isn’t working, rather than sticking rigidly to an ineffective Plan A in the hope that it’ll come good.
Even in the trigger-happy era of modern football, the Dutchman’s job should feel more than secure, but there’s no disputing that he needs a turnaround in results soon to keep the heat off his back after a wretched four weeks for Liverpool.
You can watch Slot’s full post-Manchester United press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
Not sure we need any secretan guys at LFC or those trying to smear us with such.
Slot was under no pressure last season which helped him. Everyone thought that life after klopp was a transition period, rebuild. Slot would be under less pressure if 450 million wasn’t just spent on new players. When you lose four games on the bounce and the way we are playing there’s obviously something wrong with what the manager is doing. Make no mistake FSG will now be looking at this with concern, if we don’t get through next phase of champions league and drop out of the top four slot wont be manager for long. Will he even make it until Christmas. When you are as bad as we are it’s difficult to overturn it. You get into a rut, confidence disappears, and the manager loses the dressing room. It was always a massive gamble to bring in a manager from Holland. The Dutch league is inept. How many Dutch manager’s survive in the premier league. In my 50 years as a Liverpool fan, my experience tells me slot has it all to do to last the season. Hope I’m wrong.