Yesterday was tough. Saying goodbye to Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson was far from an easy thing for Liverpool supporters to do, given the joy that the pair of them have given us all. Yes, Salah has enjoyed his moments of throwing his toys out of the pram from time to time, but that’s what you get with having one of the best players ever to play the game wearing your club’s shirt on the pitch. For Robbo, it has been a career that even he will have struggled to predict when he was being rejected by Celtic and struggling to get a game for Hull City. That he went on to be arguably the club’s greatest ever left-back is a thing of wonder. The fact that our campaign has been as poor as it is has been is a real shame, meaning that we didn’t get to say goodbye to them both with more winners’ medals in their pockets. In fact, they’re departing Anfield with more questions than answers facing the likes of Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes this summer, all whilst the pair of them are trying to figure out the path that they themselves want to tread.
❤️
— Liverpool FC (@lfcbot.bsky.social) 25 May 2026 at 00:36
Can Liverpool get back to winning ways without two of the architects of our previous success? It’s certainly more than possible, given the fact that the outline of this squad won the league just a season ago. It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that many of the fans are having doubts and have been for some time. Arne Slot has a lot of work to do to win people over after a campaign in which he struggled to do anything right. The Dutchman hasn’t really ever been in this position before in his managerial career, having to win over both the players that make up his squad and the fans that pay to go into the ground and watch them. Whether he can do it or not will largely depend on whether or not he’s given the tools that he needs to be able to play football that will be more readily accepted by the Anfield faithful. Although many would’ve handed him his marching orders after the final whistle yesterday, it now appears as though he will carry on being the Liverpool boss into 2026-2027. His first order of business will be to unpack what’s just happened.
The Shadow of Diogo Jota
When it comes to the mitigating circumstances that Arne Slot has had to deal with over the past 12 months, there is nothing bigger than the tragic loss of Diogo Jota and his brother, André Silva. The loss of the two footballers is a tragedy that made the sport stand still, seeing an outpouring of grief displayed at Anfield and around the world. That it came just 11 days after the forward had married his long-term partner, Rute Cardoso, added even more sadness to the whole thing. It is hardly a shock that such a devastating loss had an impact on the squad, even if some people have been keen to play it down. I have been mentioning the loss of Jota as a contributing factor to the season every chance I get, with some of the replies genuinely boggling the mind. We won the first six games of the season, you see, so that obviously means that the players weren’t affected. In fact, even mentioning Jota as a contributing factor is disrespectful to his memory, as though suggesting that the players weren’t impacted by the loss of a friend and teammate isn’t more disrespectful.
Mohamed Salah on Diogo Jota:
“We miss him; he was a special guy.”
“My wife is in contact with his wife and I wish all the good things for his kids.” #LFC #Liverpool #Redsky #EgyptianKing
— Michael Emonds (@michaelje67.bsky.social) 22 May 2026 at 20:33
Our former reserve goalkeeper, Caoimhin Kelleher, came out in the press midway through the season and said that the loss of Jota meant that the campaign wasn’t really about football for Liverpool. Mo Salah has made no secret of the devastation that he felt, whilst Andy Robertson said last week that the first time the players all saw one another after the trophy parade was on the plane heading to their former teammate’s funeral. As much as some people might be desperate to dismiss it as unimportant, the players themselves have repeatedly said it had a huge impact on the season and I’m personally inclined to listen to them. Of course, everyone will grieve differently and some of the players will have coped with it better than others, but it will have changed everything about the approach to the campaign, from training to fitness and the ability of the squad to cope with even the slightest bit of adversity. By the time most people will have gone through the grieving process, the damage was already done and the season had very much come off the rails.
Injuries, Injuries, Injuries
Let me be clear: none of this is me suggesting that Arne Slot has had a good season. Whilst I’m understanding of the mitigating circumstances around the campaign, I still don’t think he did well enough and I can more than see why many have been calling for him to be sacked. Yet, I’ve also been frustrated with how many people I’ve seen and heard mention the mitigation, only to then talk about what’s happened as if it’s totally irrelevant and the mitigation can be ignored. Slot was just 46 years old when Jota died and he had to offer support to his players and the supporters. It is obvious, to me at least, that he was also going to be impacted by what happened and won’t have been in a good frame of mind for the majority of the season. Again, I still think he should’ve done better, but to have a young man given the burden of helping everyone cope with that is a mitigating circumstance all of its own. Then you need to think about how many injuries his squad suffered throughout the season, which would be enough to derail virtually any manager’s plans.
I believe Slot has had one of the three most difficult seasons of any Liverpool Manager since Taylor. Obviously one for Kenny. The injury season 20-21 for Jurgen. The tragedy of Diogo. The departures. New signings getting serious injuries. Season ending injuries. Ali out.
Richard Hughes is deserving of plenty of criticism for the squad that he put together for Slot to use, including the decision to drag out the Alexander Isak situation to the point that he took forever to get fit. When he eventually was up to speed, he suffered a broken leg. Conor Bradley was the player many of us hoped would allow us to cope with the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold, only for him to suffer a knee injury that ended his season early. Hugo Ekitike started the campaign like a man with a point to prove, then he snapped his Achilles and we’ll be lucky to see him play again before 2028. Alisson Becker’s age meant that he was regularly disappearing with long-term injuries, whilst our substitute goalkeeper also ended up being ruled out for four weeks. Giovanni Leoni looked brilliant when he played in the cup match against Southampton, then he tore his ACL. Any time Slot will have been looking to put some form of plan together, another injury struck. He may be the ‘fraud’ some people say he is, but I’m more inclined to think he’s a good manager who suffered a season of horrendously bad fortune.
