The season has been a prolonged period of disappointment for Liverpool. Supporter goodwill from last term is gone and the club must take decisive steps to prevent another poor campaign in 2026-27.<\/p>\n
1) Clarify leadership. Accountability sits with Arne Slot after an unforgiving season. Slot has faced intense scrutiny for selections, substitutions and an inability to get the best from new signings. The manager has overseen an unacceptable 17 defeats across all competitions and a run of underperformance dating back to spring 2025. Xabi Alonso\u2019s availability as a free agent will intensify speculation over a change of direction.<\/p>\n
2) Rebuild recruitment and balance the squad. Last summer\u2019s recruitment departed from Liverpool\u2019s usual model and included breaking the Premier League transfer record twice and spending just over $600 million. Surgery is required: the centre of defence needs reinforcement despite the winter signing of J\u00e9r\u00e9my Jacquet, another defensive midfielder is essential, wide forwards are necessary to find a long-term heir to Mohamed Salah and to boost creativity, and Andy Robertson\u2019s confirmed exit means a new left back must be signed to compete with Milos Kerkez.<\/p>\n
3) Trim the squad and free up funds. After the Champions League exit to Paris Saint-Germain, Slot admitted players needed to be sold to recoup funds. With many fringe players already disposed of last summer, Liverpool must be ruthless. Departures of Salah and Robertson would free salary room, Salah currently earns $543,000 per week, and a possible free exit for Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 could provide further flexibility. Players mentioned for sale include Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo. Joe Gomez\u2019s injury record raises questions but a shortage of homegrown talent could complicate any sale. Cody Gakpo signed a new contract last August but his poor form could be considered. Curtis Jones will be 26 next season and faces pressure to reach his potential.<\/p>\n
4) Restore intensity. Under J\u00fcrgen Klopp the team was defined by gegenpressing and relentless intensity. Slot\u2019s more controlled approach has left Liverpool easier to play against, regularly outrun and outfought, and prone to slowing the tempo when ahead. Recovering that intensity should be a priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool must decide on leadership, rebuild recruitment, cut payroll, and restore team’s intensity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11976,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1505,1305],"class_list":["post-11977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-accountability","tag-bench-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}