For too many people this season, offering any sort of defence of Arne Slot is taken as if you don’t think he’s done anything wrong. I think that the Dutchman has had a poor campaign overall, even if I’m willing to be a little bit more forgiving of him than most. I will bang the drum for the rest of time that the biggest influence on Liverpool’s season was the loss of Diogo Jota in the summer. That isn’t me using his death as some sort of excuse, rather merely pointing out a fact. It was only a couple of weeks ago that Caoimhín Kelleher turned around and said that the players shouldn’t be judged at all this season because of the grief that they’ve all been suffering from, whilst we also know that both Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson have been unequivocal when it comes to explaining their feelings on the matter. This is a squad and a management team that has had to cope with the unthinkable and have all been heavily influenced by the feelings that they’ve been having.
I left Liverpool in summer – it is unfair to criticise them this season after Diogo Jota tragedy
https://www.europesays.com/ie/323525/
Former Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher says the Reds are being judged unfairly this season following the death of…
— ie-news.bsky.social (@ie-news.bsky.social) 6 February 2026 at 14:30
So no, I don’t think that Slot has been perfect, but nor am I willing to say that we should pin the blame for every single thing that’s happened on him. It can simultaneously be true that someone hasn’t had a particularly good campaign and yet also isn’t the one with whom the buck should stop. Slot’s decision-making has been odd at times, which is entirely explainable by what he’s had to take on his shoulders in helping his players to cope with the loss of their friend and colleague, all whilst grieving the loss himself. That anyone has expected him to be perfect is absolute madness in my eyes. If we’d have beaten Wolves in the back-to-back games against them, he’d have the best record in the first 100 games in charge of any Liverpool manager in the history of the club. Given what’s happened this season, that is a simply remarkable fact that belies the notion that he is somehow some idiotic fool who only won because of Jürgen Klopp.
Don’t Let the Players Off the Hook
I think the main reason that I’m so reluctant to simply lay the blame at the door of Arne Slot and walk away is that it lets too many players off the hook. Yes, they have also been grieving as much, if not more so, than the Dutchman. For most of the campaign, I have been more than willing to allow that to be used as mitigation for what has been taking place on the football pitch. Yet the reality is that some of the things that they are getting away with if we all chose to blame the manager have nothing to do with grieving. Tonight might well be the perfect example of that. For the opening goal, Virgil van Dijk was nothing short of pathetic. He was nowhere near strong enough and allowed himself to be pushed over in a situation that put us under massive pressure. He was asking a referee to give him a free-kick when the official was never going to and from there there was only one way that the move was going to play out and it wasn’t going to be in our favour.
Awful from van Dijk, lost a challenge and just jogged back.
— Nathaniel Sebastian James (@nathanielsebastian.bsky.social) 3 March 2026 at 21:52
Ahead of the second goal, Dominic Szoboszlai did something not too dissimilar, going down under a fair challenge and leaving the team short-changed, allowing Wolverhampton Wanderers the freedom of the park to attack us. From there, Curtis Jones played an idiotic ball to Alisson Becker, who then punted out a terrible clearance akin to what we’ve seen from him far too regularly this season. It was all just terrible play and I simply can’t see how the manager is to blame for such moronic decision-making from players who really should know better. We started the game about as well as we’ve started any game against a ‘lesser’ opponent so far in the campaign, also coming out looking much stronger after the interval; the two moments that Slot gets to talk to his players. The downfall came from the poor play of the men on the pitch, not the choices made around tactics and substitutions by Arne Slot and his backroom team.
Salah as Liverpool’s Season Personified
Firstly, I just feel incredibly sorry for Mo Salah. The Egyptian King has given me more joy than any other player in my lifetime, being Liverpool’s best performer across every season in which he’s been at the club. Until this one. Post-AFCON, Salah is never fun to watch at the best of times and it’s fair to say that these aren’t the best of times. The forward is one of the players that I think has struggled the most with the loss of Jota and he has simply never been able to get his campaign going as a result. In so many ways, he is the personification of our season: struggling to cope with the loss of a friend and colleague, absent of any real spark and not looking even remotely like his former self. When he mishit the pass to Szoboszlai for the attack after it went 1-1, when it was almost easier for him to make it, I just felt very, very sad. It summed up how poor he has been throughout the season, when you felt like the goal would give him the kickstart he needed.
This is honestly not a brag but I think i could do what Salah is doing so far tonight.
Still time for him to do the things none of us can even imagine doing though.
Come on Mo!— Berlin Kopite (@berlinkopite.bsky.social) 3 March 2026 at 21:31
On the one hand, the manager will feel as though his decision to leave Salah on was justified when you consider the fact that he scored. On the other, I think Slot’s critics are entirely fair to use the Egyptian’s continued presence on the field as a stick with which to beat him. Of course, this is where it is only right to mention Richard Hughes, who is the architect of this Liverpool squad and who should be answering questions about precisely why the only options on the wings are either an out-of-form Mo Salah, a Cody Gakpo who has never knowingly turned down a chance to slow the game by cutting inside, or a 17-year-old. Federico Chiesa probably should’ve been used more, but then when you see him attempt to run, you can understand why he hasn’t been. Hughes might well point to the injuries to Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong as excuses for the issues down the right, but ultimately, we’ve had to keep expecting players to do something they’ve shown no signs of doing all season. I suppose that’s Slot’s fault too.
