The ‘Crucial’ Factor That Could Decide Arne Slot’s Liverpool Future

Anfield’s corridors of power are bracing for a summer of reckoning. After a debut campaign that delivered the Premier League title at a canter, Arne Slot’s second season has veered into treacherous territory, and the club’s Champions League fate is now being viewed inside Liverpool as the single issue that will shape the manager’s future.

Sources close to the club tell Sports Illustrated FC that Fenway Sports Group will trigger a formal review of Slot’s position once the final whistle blows on May 25. The brief is blunt: finish in the extended European places or face an inquest that could cost the Dutchman his job. England is poised to receive a fifth Champions League berth after a record coefficient haul, yet even that reprieve offers no guarantees for a side languishing in the lower reaches of the qualification scrap.

With nine rounds remaining, Liverpool sit two points adrift of Chelsea, three behind Manchester United and eight short of Aston Villa. The arithmetic is unforgiving: maximum points from the next five fixtures—against four of the current bottom five plus Brighton—are considered non-negotiable if Slot wants to reach that defining quartet of May fixtures with destiny still in his own hands. Those May meetings read like a dramatist’s script: Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, Villa Park and a final-day reunion with Brentford, each opponent locked in the same dogfight for continental football.

Inside the dressing-room, confidence has oscillated wildly. A dour 0-0 at Arsenal in January hinted at resilience, yet home slips against Leeds, Fulham, Burnley and Bournemouth exposed the brittleness that has stalked the squad since the turn of the year. Even Mohamed Salah, the club’s modern-day icon, publicly vented during a mid-winter stretch that yielded four wins from 15 matches, a sequence that persuaded senior officials to offer vocal backing when criticism peaked.

That support, however, is conditional. Club negotiator Fabrizio Romano confirms that Champions League revenue—projected at upwards of £50 million in prize money and broadcast cash—is now “absolutely crucial” to a business model that bankrolled record summer spending. Miss out, and the American owners will reassess every football department, starting with the man in the technical area.

Slot, for his part, has refused to canvass sympathy. “We still have the road in front of us,” he told reporters after last weekend’s 4-1 statement win over Newcastle, a result that briefly lifted the gloom. The upcoming schedule offers a chance to convert promise into points: trips to Sheffield United, Luton and already-relegated Burnley sandwich home dates with basement-dwellers Cardiff—still clinging to survival hopes—and Brighton, whose own season has spluttered.

Yet Liverpool’s recent history warns against complacency. The same side that dismantled Newcastle also surrendered a two-goal lead at Bournemouth in November and conceded a stoppage-time equaliser to 10-man Fulham. Those lapses explain why supporters approach the run-in with caution rather than conviction.

If the Reds max out the next 15 points, they will arrive on the season’s final straight level or ahead of at least one of their direct rivals, transforming those May showdowns into sudden-death shoot-outs. Drop even two points, and the equation reverts to scoreboard-watching, praying for slip-ups from teams above.

For Slot, the stakes could scarcely be higher. A top-five finish secures European royalty and, almost certainly, his continued stewardship of one of world football’s most scrutinised jobs. Anything less invites the kind of forensic review that has ended tenures at Anfield before his.

The next eight weeks will tell whether the Dutchman is planning a title assault for 2026 or polishing his CV for a swift return to the continent. Liverpool’s season—and perhaps Slot’s career on Merseyside—now hinges on a sequence of fixtures against the league’s strugglers, a irony not lost on a fanbase that once measured success in trophies, not survival.