Fifth place cost Slot his job
Twenty-five points behind Arsenal. Twenty-four points behind their own tally from the previous season. Liverpool finished fifth in 2025-26 and Arne Slot paid for it with his job, despite having delivered the title in his first year on Merseyside.
Andoni Iraola replaces him, and Opta’s season preview published this morning lays out why the fit looks natural on paper. The Spaniard broke Bournemouth’s top-flight points record in each of his three seasons on the south coast and came close to pushing Liverpool out of the Champions League places last term. His teams attack fast and vertically. Over his spell at the Vitality, only one Premier League side generated more shots from fast breaks than Bournemouth’s 128, and that side was Liverpool, with 155.
Bournemouth also moved the ball upfield quicker than anyone else under Iraola, at an average of 1.95 metres per second, while only Everton averaged fewer passes per sequence than their 2.98. Pep Guardiola name-checked that style last year as the direction the modern game was heading.
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Two forwards with a bill to settle
Mohamed Salah has left, along with Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate. That hands the creative and goalscoring load to last summer’s record pair. Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak cost a combined 225 million pounds, rising towards 245 million with add-ons, and neither delivered in year one.
Wirtz managed seven goals and eight assists across 49 games. Isak, slowed first by the mess of his Newcastle exit and then by a broken leg at Tottenham in December, finished with four goals and one assist in 22 outings. Both were more productive before the move: Wirtz posted 16 goals and 14 assists in 45 games for Bayer Leverkusen in 2024-25, Isak 27 goals and six assists in 42 for Newcastle. Those 63 combined goal involvements would now count as a good season at Anfield.
An old weakness follows him north
Liverpool conceded 20 non-penalty set-piece goals last season, a total matched only by Crystal Palace and, awkwardly, Iraola’s Bournemouth. The same backroom staff have travelled with him, with Tommy Elphick handed defensive set-plays and Shaun Cooper the attacking ones.
There is evidence the attacking side can be fixed. Liverpool scored three non-penalty set-piece goals up to 1 January, the joint fewest in the league, then 15 after it, at least three more than anyone else. The defending is the harder sell.
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