{"id":606831,"date":"2026-04-16T00:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606831\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:16:13","slug":"slots-misplaced-positivity-does-not-tally-with-harsh-reality-of-liverpools-season-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606831\/","title":{"rendered":"Slot\u2019s misplaced positivity does not tally with harsh reality of Liverpool\u2019s season | Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe failure is big,\u201d said Ryan Gravenberch as he digested the Champions League defeat by Paris Saint-Germain<\/a> that ensured Liverpool\u2019s season will finish trophyless. It was a more appropriate description of the team\u2019s plight than Arne Slot\u2019s insistence the future looks bright and a reality the head coach cannot avoid whether Champions League qualification for next season is secured or not. As it must be.<\/p>\n

Failure is unthinkable for a club whose business model depends on its lucrative revenue streams and a team that 12 months ago was about to win the Premier League title at a canter and then remodelled to the tune of almost \u00a3450m. With the top five all qualifying, Chelsea fading from the conversation under Liam Rosenior and a five-point advantage over Brentford and Everton with six games to play, it would be a humiliating final blow for Liverpool<\/a> to miss out. Slot\u2019s defence for getting a third season to manage Liverpool\u2019s transition would be holed.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s Merseyside derby, the first to be staged at Hill Dickinson Stadium, has assumed huge importance for Slot. But not simply in the aftermath of Tuesday\u2019s Champions League exit. The visit to Everton represents the conclusion of what was long considered a defining period for him, a sequence of five matches in 16 days<\/a> that would determine Liverpool\u2019s course in the FA Cup and Champions League plus strengthen \u2013 or undermine \u2013 their claims on a top-five finish.<\/p>\n

The first four matches have yielded three defeats, two competition exits by an aggregate scoreline of 8-0, two differing gameplans against PSG that did not work and one league win inspired by the 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s sporting director, Richard Hughes, who hired Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth, was present at Anfield to witness the side perform valiantly against the European champions, but badly underperform their xG \u2013 in this case 1.94 \u2013 yet again. Repeated shortcomings are not a bad luck story. The misfortune was to lose Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 to a suspected achilles injury when he collapsed with no one near him in the 27th minute. Ekitik\u00e9, one of the few pluses from last summer\u2019s intake, seems unlikely to play again this year. The France manager Didier Deschamps has ruled him out of his plans for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Hughes will have heard the applause for Liverpool\u2019s efforts that greeted the final whistle. There was more support for the team and their performance inside the ground, where it matters, than on social media, where it does not. He will recognise Ekitik\u00e9\u2019s injury is the latest in a long line of problems that have conspired against the club this season. The absence of their leading goalscorer will mean the new \u00a3320m frontline that sent expectations soaring \u2013 Alexander Isak, Ekitik\u00e9 and Florian Wirtz \u2013 have played 115 minutes together by the season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Hughes would also have seen that Slot\u2019s decision to start Isak for the first time in four months against PSG did not pay off. Nor did the decision to switch to a back five for the first and only time in his Liverpool reign in the first leg at Parc des Princes. Slot\u2019s explanation for starting Isak was logical \u2013 the striker had 45 to 55 minutes in him and might deliver the early goal that Liverpool craved \u2013 but five touches summed up the forward\u2019s minimal impact before his half-time substitution. A Champions League quarter-final against the best side in Europe is not the place for experimentation.<\/p>\n

Alexander Isak (right) battles for the ball with the PSG defender Marquinhos. Photograph: Paul Ellis\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing is Alex is back,\u201d said Slot after the second leg. At the time it sounded like a \u00a3125m lead balloon being dropped on to a miserable night, misplaced positivity to accompany Slot\u2019s assertion: \u201cThe future looks very bright for this team, for this club. We have showed we can compete with the champions of Europe in our stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with Ekitik\u00e9 out and Liverpool stumbling through the run-in, in keeping with the entire season, a fit Isak could prove the difference between Champions League qualification and humiliation. Isak and Wirtz are overdue repayments on their exorbitant transfer fees, even taking into account the former\u2019s serious injury, having massively underwhelmed. It is on Slot to get that supply line functioning in the final six games.<\/p>\n

Gravenberch made no attempt to sugarcoat Liverpool\u2019s exit in an interview with the Dutch media outlet Ziggo Sport. Asked whether it was acceptable to be eliminated by a team as impressive as PSG, the Liverpool midfielder said: \u201cNo, actually not. It\u2019s disappointing. We have to pick ourselves up as Sunday is waiting. We still have six matches in the league and we just want to play in the Champions League next year as well. We have to give it our all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been a bit unlucky whereas last year we got a lot of things going our way. This year it feels we\u2019re only getting setbacks \u2013 [conceding] a lot of goals in the last minute, not finishing our own chances when we are playing well. It\u2019s just a tough season \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe failure is big. Ultimately you want to win a trophy but if you don\u2019t have that in a season like the one we\u2019re having now, you can only learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe failure is big,\u201d said Ryan Gravenberch as he digested the Champions League defeat by Paris Saint-Germain that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-606831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}