{"id":389491,"date":"2026-01-25T09:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T09:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/389491\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T09:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T09:37:11","slug":"arne-slot-isnt-the-only-one-responsible-for-liverpools-nightmare-theres-another-party-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/389491\/","title":{"rendered":"Arne Slot isn’t the only one responsible for Liverpool’s nightmare, there’s another party to blame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Arne Slot had a big hand in Liverpool\u2019s 3-2 loss to Bournemouth, with some of his decision-making truly baffling.<\/p>\n

Before the match even began, the Dutchman made the call to drop Hugo Ekitike for Cody Gakpo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gakpo is not a striker, never plays well there for Liverpool<\/a>, and the new system Slot deployed<\/a> against Marseille doesn\u2019t work without a target man.<\/p>\n

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So, it wasn\u2019t surprising to see Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez being left frustrated<\/a> when they were bursting forward, just like they did on Wednesday, then had nobody to aim for.<\/p>\n

Who was Liverpool\u2019s worst player as they fell to a pathetic loss against Bournemouth? <\/p>\n

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Later in the tie, Slot<\/a> took Frimpong off and moved Dominik Szoboszlai into the back-four.<\/p>\n

In the end, Liverpool didn\u2019t deserve more than a point and their winless start to 2026 in the league continues.<\/p>\n

FSG are not helping Arne Slot at Liverpool<\/p>\n

Obviously, the Dutchman should and will shoulder much of the blame for the recent run of results.<\/p>\n

But Saturday\u2019s defeat did highlight another problem that could have easily been fixed by FSG<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before the transfer window even began, it was so obvious that a new centre-back needed to be signed.<\/p>\n

Marc Guehi was a long-term target<\/a>, but Liverpool wanted to wait until the summer, and he\u2019s now joined Manchester City instead.<\/p>\n

With Guehi out of the picture, it would have made sense for the Merseyside outfit to move on to other options.<\/p>\n

But as Slot said in his pre-Bournemouth press conference this week, Liverpool don\u2019t expect to sign anyone in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Will Xabi Alonso be Liverpool manager by the start of the 2026\/27 season? <\/p>\n

If no, where will he be instead?<\/p>\n

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Why? Who knows, but the need for another centre-back was so clear against Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

Virgil van Dijk was criticised by fans<\/a>, and while he\u2019s shown moments of quality, hasn\u2019t been at his best this term.<\/p>\n

Joe Gomez was then injured, leaving Wataru Endo to come out and see out the remainder of the clash out of position.<\/p>\n

Even before the winter, Liverpool only had three fit centre-backs in 2025\/26, with Gomez also required as cover at right-back.<\/p>\n

The season-ending injury to Conor Bradley against Arsenal should have seen Richard Hughes and co. spring into action and add another defender to the team as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

However, they sat on their hands, and Liverpool\u2019s makeshift defence was exposed against the Cherries.<\/p>\n

FSG boast impressive revenue<\/a> compared to every other team in the Premier League, but this penny-pinching plan to save as much money as possible and only sign players at the exact right time is costly and is not helping the club or Slot.<\/p>\n

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Receive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot had a big hand in Liverpool\u2019s 3-2 loss to Bournemouth, with some of his decision-making truly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1969,218,12043,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-389491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-arne-slot","tag-football","tag-fsg","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}