This time last year, Liverpool head coach Arne Slot had silenced every doubter. His team were surging to the title in his first season in the Premier League, and ‘Mission Impossible: Replace Jurgen Klopp’ looked to be going superbly.
When Klopp took charge in 2015, he famously said he had arrived to turn Reds fans from doubters to believers. By the time he left Anfield in 2024, he had achieved that.
Slot is now in danger of completely reversing all that good work, If he hasn’t done so already.
The title defence never got started. The FA Cup is gone. The Champions League, gone.
In the space of 10 days, Manchester City and PSG took turns handing Liverpool defeats to dash the Reds’ slim hopes of ending this season with a trophy.
It’s a critical moment for Slot. The Merseyside derby on Sunday means more than just bragging rights. It is a derby that he simply cannot afford to lose.
“The Future Looks Bright”
In an interview after the PSG defeat, Slot said “the future looks bright” but added that Liverpool would need more players.
The Dutchman explained that losing Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah, and Andy Robertson on free transfers means the club would need to sell in order to buy.
Each Premier League club in next season’s Champions League could earn at least $100 million, and after the Reds spent around £450 million on signings last summer, that UCL money is sorely needed.
England have earned one of the two European Performance spots for next season’s Champions League, which means five Premier League clubs will qualify. Liverpool are in position to qualify but have only a six-point lead ahead of 10th-placed Sunderland, with six games remaining.
Sunday’s derby aside, the Reds’ run-in includes games against Man Utd, Chelsea, and fellow UCL-spot contenders Aston Villa, so the fight for fifth will be fierce.
Everton are just five points behind Liverpool and have a golden opportunity to score a massive derby result here.
The Toffees face the mouth-watering prospect of winning a derby — the first at their new Hill Dickinson Stadium, no less — and potentially rubbing salt in the wound by denying their city rivals a Champions League spot.
Jamie Carragher said in January that failure to qualify for the Champions League could spell the end of Slot’s tenure.
Since then, with Liverpool’s form showing little improvement, oddsmakers will have been hard at work tracking the likelihood that another manager will lead the team next season. Former Liverpool midfielder and fan-favorite Xabi Alonso tops the list as it stands.
The stakes could extend well beyond Slot's future, though. Champions League qualification is paramount for Liverpool in terms of attracting players.
Failure to qualify for the competition could set in motion a chain of events that costs Liverpool the foundation their next chapter is being built on.
The Present: Everton
Slot can’t afford to look past Sunday, though.
The sight of Hugo Ekitike, easily Liverpool’s most impactful new signing this season, being stretchered off against PSG would have added even more worry ahead of this match.
The Frenchman has been ruled out for the season with an Achilles injury, and the team will miss his reliable energy in attack in this game and the remainder of the season.
Big-money signing Alexander Isak is only just returning from injury, has barely played in weeks, and is unlikely to play the full 90 minutes on Sunday. The Swede has registered two league goals and one assist in a stop-start first season at Anfield.
The responsibility may well fall to talismanic attacker Salah to produce the goals to win this match.
The Egyptian has recorded 11 goal involvements in 14 matches against Everton, and he will want to increase that tally in his last Merseyside derby after a disappointing 2025/26 season.
At the back, more uncertainty. Giorgi Mamardashvili will start with Reds No. 1 Alisson still recovering from injury.
The Georgian makes his derby debut in what will no doubt be a fiery fixture at a tricky moment for him. The 25-year-old keeper is still finding his feet in English football, deputising for one of the greatest to ever play for the club, in a game Liverpool cannot afford to lose.
Liverpool look worryingly short of certainties right now.
Slot spoke with certainty about the future being bright, but it’s not a foregone conclusion — he needs to earn it. On Sunday, nothing less than a win will do.
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