Arne Slot was still planning Liverpool's pre-season when FSG pulled the plug. Transfer targets drawn up. Pre-season schedule discussed. The Dutchman had no idea it was coming — and that alone tells you something about how this ended.
The timing wasn't random. Andoni Iraola had just left Bournemouth at the end of his contract, drawing interest from Bayer Leverkusen and AC Milan. Liverpool had to move or lose him. Richard Hughes, the club's sporting director, knows Iraola personally from his time as technical director at Bournemouth — that relationship almost certainly smoothed the path to a deal. When the right candidate is available and the window is closing, clubs act. FSG acted.
A second season that unravelled fast
The case against Slot looks damning on the surface: £600 million spent, a Champions League spot only scraped on the final day, supporters turning. But the context is messier than that. The new signings — Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez, Hugo Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong — needed time to bed in. Isak spent chunks of the season injured. Diogo Jota's death hit the squad hard. The Mo Salah situation, even if it ended cordially, was a distraction that dragged across months.
Had the two seasons been flipped — struggle first, title second — Slot would still be untouchable at Anfield. Instead, he won it all in year one with a squad he barely touched, then watched things fragment when he finally got the rebuild he'd been asking for. That's a brutal sequence for any manager's reputation, regardless of the circumstances behind it.
Critics who said he just inherited Klopp's squad conveniently forget that same squad finished third and fifth in the two seasons before Slot arrived. He delivered. The support evaporated the moment results dipped anyway.
What Iraola inherits
Liverpool are framing this as a transitional period, which is honest at least. The squad is bloated with expensive new arrivals still finding their feet, and Slot's contract runs another year — so FSG are paying two managers simultaneously while telling fans to be patient. That's not a great sell.
Iraola's reputation is built on attacking, high-tempo football and a clear tactical identity. He turned Bournemouth into a European club. That's the brief at Liverpool too — get the expensive parts working, make Anfield uncomfortable again.
Whether that's achievable in year one is a real question. Liverpool's title odds entering next season will depend heavily on how quickly Iraola can integrate a squad that cost a fortune but still looked disjointed for long stretches of last term.
Slot has a year left on his deal and no reason to rush back into the dugout. The club has acknowledged publicly that Michael Edwards and Hughes made the call together. Whatever memory Anfield holds of Slot, it ends here — a title winner who didn't get to finish what he started.
