In The Mixer: Experts back Liverpool to stick with Slot
Sports Journalist at FST, Gareth qualified as a journalist after graduating from university and spent over a decade as a freelance broadcast journalist, commentator and tipster before joining FST. Now living in Manchester, he is a long suffering Bolton Wanderers fan who also enjoys boxing, the NBA, tennis and rugby league.
In The Mixer is FST’s weekly column where we catch up with our team of football betting experts and get their opinion on the hot topic of the week.
Liverpool claimed a vital win over West Ham at the weekend but manager Arne Slot remains under pressure, we asked our panel if the Reds should back or sack the boss who guided them to league glory last season.
Alex Wrigley
Slot’s phenomenal first season at Anfield will understandably be taken into account, and his past successes have given him more grace than most Premier League managers would have been afforded, but Liverpool’s win over West Ham at the weekend needs to kickstart a real resurgence if the Dutchman is to survive the year on Merseyside.
They have lost nine of their last 13 games and looked like they were treading on thin ice even before their downfall. With five games between now and Christmas, this is a pivotal period in Slot’s future in the north west.
Alex Hilton
All the sounds coming out of Anfield are that his position is safe and I think he should be given the time to improve the situation.
Slot hasn’t helped himself at times by sticking to a system that was clearly not working and picking players who were struggling, but he also let down by the club not landing a centre back and a proper right back in the summer transfer window.
Injuries haven’t helped, nor has the form of several of his key men, but there were signs in Sunday’s win over West Ham that a few tweaks to the system could improve fortunes.
The Reds are four points off second spot and with games against Sunderland and Leeds to come this week, things could be soon looking much better for the champions.
Aidan Perkins
What Slot achieved last season cannot be dismissed easily but very few managers would survive the recent poor results and the club’s owners will have been getting nervous at the alarming slide amid fears that even a Champions League place this season is in doubt.
However, there is still plenty of quality in Slot’s squad and Sunday’s much-needed win at West Ham has lifted the gloom, for now at least.
Even though the campaign has not gone according to plan, I feel the Dutchman should be given a bit longer yet to try and turn things around.
Gareth Freeman
They should back him for now on the basis of what he did last season, but at the same time Sunday’s win over West Ham probably has to be the start of a real recovery if he is to remain in charge.
This hasn’t been an unfortunate run for Liverpool in the sense that the vast majority of their recent losses have been deserved defeats but after winning the title last season Arne Slot deserves a little while longer to turn it around.
Enda McElhinney
The Dutchman would have been shuffling a little uneasily for an hour before Alexander Isak set his side on their way to a much-needed win against West Ham.
On such moments fortunes can change – for the big-money signing, his manager and the Premier League champions – an aspect of Slot’s first season that shouldn’t be forgotten.
The tragic passing of Diogo Jota is another mitigating factor that the Reds are battling against, the human effect in their dressing room perhaps underestimated.
Liverpool have a decent set of league fixtures between now and their trip to Arsenal in January. Slot deserves time to bring a faltering ship back onto a charted course and if Isak & some of the other summer arrivals find their stride, he may well do that.
Jack Ogalbe
It’s crazy to think it’s been six months since Arne Slot lifted the Premier League title, but so much has changed at Liverpool.
Results inevitably prompted talk of the sack, but they looked better in Sunday’s win at West Ham, and with Mohamed Salah heading off to AFCON in the next fortnight, Slot’s decision to bench the Egyptian proved correct.
Much has been made of the Reds’ transfer business, but time on the training ground has been limited. However, with a decent run of fixtures, look for them to improve and for their recent run to be forgotten as quickly as last season’s success seems to have been.
Tom McGarry
Winning the Premier League title, just Liverpool’s second championship success in 35 years, means it would be a travesty if the club opted to part ways with Arne Slot, a scenario that seems less likely following Sunday’s win at West Ham.
Slot proved his qualities as a manager last season – his first year working in the Premier League – moulding a largely unchanged team that finished third under Jurgen Klopp the year before not only into champions, but one that triumphed by a 10-point margin.
With such an overhaul of the squad during the summer, there was always going to be a drop off, but with a largely favourable run of fixtures on the horizon, Liverpool, with Slot at the helm, should start climbing the table.
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