How much pressure is Slot really under at Liverpool?

By the time Arne Slot faced the cameras on Tuesday, the smile he managed was thin and fleeting. “This is the toughest season of my career, by a mile,” he conceded, a line that felt less like a sound-bite and more like a confession. Twelve months on from cantering to the Premier League title in his debut campaign, the Dutchman is discovering that defending the crown can be a lonelier, nastier business than winning it.

The bare statistics are bruising. After opening the season with five straight victories, Liverpool have taken 24 points from the subsequent 20 league fixtures. Roy Hodgson, sacked in 2010-11, collected 25 from his final 20. In 2026 alone, Liverpool have won once in seven league outings; earlier this term they lost nine of 12 matches, their worst sequence in 71 years. “They’ve been really bad champions,” Roy Keane declared on Sky Sports after Sunday’s latest setback, a blunt verdict that stung inside Anfield’s increasingly restless stands.

Such numbers become more incendiary when set against a summer outlay of £450 million. Slot accepts Champions League qualification is non-negotiable; anything less, he said, “would not be acceptable.” Yet Liverpool remain lodged in the scrap for fourth place largely because Chelsea and Manchester United have imploded spectacularly, dispensing with their managers as dressing-room relationships frayed beyond repair.

So why has Slot not joined them on the chopping block? For one, he retains rare credit in the bank: only he, Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp have lifted the English title since 2017-18. The club’s hierarchy, historically reluctant to sack coaches, are understood to be backing the 47-year-old at least until May. A round-table video released last week featuring Slot, sporting director Richard Hughes and CEO Billy Hogan projected unity, while Hughes—architect of Slot’s appointment—would find jettisoning the Dutchman an admission of profound misjudgement.

Internally, the manager is still viewed as calm, consistent and level-headed, even if admissions that he finds criticism of Liverpool’s “dull” football “hard to hear” reveal a man feeling the heat. Boos, once rare on Merseyside, have punctuated several home games this season; externally, patience is eroding.

There is context. The tragic death of Diogo Jota last summer shattered the squad, and while no one at the club uses the loss as an alibi, privately players admit football felt trivial in the aftermath. Long-term injuries to Giovanni Leoni, Conor Bradley and Alexander Isak have further shredded the squad, while a deliberate transition towards technically oriented signings—designed to future-proof possession-based football—has collided with a campaign where physicality has dominated.

Key players have simultaneously regressed, leaving Slot to insist Liverpool have been “out-played for only three halves all season,” a claim that stretches credulity when eight league defeats and six draws are taken into account. “Are we unlucky or is it part of who we are?” he asked rhetorically. The next three to four months will supply the answer.

Silverware remains possible—Liverpool are alive in both the FA Cup and Champions League—but the financial model is predicated on Champions League revenue. Miss it, and the ripple effects will be felt across budgets and contracts. Klopp’s 2020-21 side recovered from eighth in late February to finish third; Slot must summon a similar surge, beginning at Sunderland on Wednesday.

The elephant in the room is Xabi Alonso, newly available after leaving Real Madrid and perennially linked with the Anfield hot-seat. Yet with a 61% win percentage—the best in Liverpool’s history—Slot retains tangible backing. For now, the Dutchman’s future hinges not on speculation but on whether he can steer a wounded, grieving, lopsided squad back into Europe’s elite before the reckoning arrives.