Liverpool have sacked head coach Arne Slot after two seasons in charge at Anfield, with Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola emerging as the overwhelming favourite to succeed the Dutchman. The decision, confirmed by the club on Friday evening, ends a turbulent campaign in which the Reds finished fifth in the Premier League, 18 points behind champions Arsenal, and exited the Champions League at the round-of-16 stage to Bayer Leverkusen.
Slot, 47, departs Merseyside having won the Premier League title in his debut 2024-25 season — succeeding Jurgen Klopp with a 12-point margin over Manchester City — but a chaotic summer rebuild and a run of one win in eleven league games between February and April left sporting director Richard Hughes and chief executive Michael Edwards convinced that change was unavoidable. Liverpool are understood to have paid up the remaining two years of Slot’s contract in a settlement worth close to £8m.
Why Slot’s reign unravelled
The collapse can be traced to a summer window that cost Fenway Sports Group a club-record £218m. Florian Wirtz arrived from Leverkusen for £116m, Hugo Ekitike joined from Eintracht Frankfurt for £69m, and Milos Kerkez was signed from Bournemouth for £40m. None settled. Wirtz scored four league goals in 28 appearances, Ekitike was dropped to the bench by March, and the departures of Trent Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid and Luis Diaz to Bayern Munich hollowed out a spine that had carried the title charge.
Slot’s insistence on a higher defensive line — a tactical pivot away from the mid-block that had served him so well in his first year — produced a goal-difference swing of minus-31 between seasons. Liverpool conceded 58 league goals, their worst total since 2011-12, and kept just seven clean sheets. Virgil van Dijk, named Premier League Player of the Season in 2024-25, was substituted at half-time in the 4-1 home defeat to Newcastle in April, a moment widely interpreted inside the dressing room as the beginning of the end.
The Champions League exit to Leverkusen, with Xabi Alonso’s side winning 3-0 on aggregate, removed Slot’s final shield. A subsequent FA Cup quarter-final loss to Brighton confirmed that the team had stopped responding.
Why Iraola is the chosen successor
Liverpool’s recruitment department, led by Hughes, has been monitoring Iraola since his Rayo Vallecano spell. The 43-year-old Basque has turned Bournemouth into one of the Premier League’s most distinctive sides, finishing seventh this season on 61 points — the club’s highest-ever top-flight total — while playing the highest-pressing football in the division according to Opta’s PPDA metric.
Hughes worked alongside Iraola at Bournemouth before joining Liverpool in 2024 and is understood to have championed him internally for more than a year. Formal contact has been made with Bournemouth owner Bill Foley, and sources close to the negotiations expect a compensation package of around £20m to trigger the release clause inserted into Iraola’s contract last summer.
Iraola’s appeal is threefold:
- His high-intensity, vertical pressing style aligns with the identity Klopp built and which supporters have missed
- He has a proven record of developing younger players, including Antoine Semenyo and Dean Huijsen, who is already on Liverpool’s summer shortlist
- His Premier League experience removes the adaptation risk that complicated Slot’s second season
What comes next at Anfield
Pepijn Lijnders, who returned to Anfield as assistant in January after a brief spell at Red Bull Salzburg, will take interim charge of the squad’s end-of-season review. Liverpool have no European football to prepare for next season, having missed out on the Europa League places, which gives the incoming manager a rare clear week-to-week schedule to rebuild.
The strategic questions facing Iraola — should he accept — are significant. Mohamed Salah, 33, enters the final year of his contract and has yet to commit beyond 2027. Alisson Becker has been linked with a return to Brazil, and Ibrahima Konate’s representatives are in advanced talks with Paris Saint-Germain. A second consecutive rebuild looms, this time without the financial latitude of last summer.
For Slot, who arrived from Feyenoord with one Eredivisie title and a reputation as one of Europe’s brightest tactical minds, the dismissal is a sobering reminder of how quickly capital at Anfield can drain. He leaves with a Premier League winner’s medal — and the unwanted distinction of becoming the first Liverpool manager to be sacked mid-cycle since Roy Hodgson in January 2011.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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