Arne Slot has been forced to accept new reality as Liverpool ponder major strategy shift

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Arne Slot says Liverpool are now a club in "transition" - the ECHO's Liverpool FC correspondent Paul Gorst assesses furtherAs the transfer deadline passed on the evening of Monday, September 1, a season of transition appeared unthinkable at Liverpool.Having wrapped up the £125m deal for Alexander Isak after summer-long pursuit of the Newcastle striker, the Premier League champions looked set to dominate.The Reds had won their opening three games, including a 1-0 Anfield success over Arsenal, and with Isak on board, they were set to kick on after what was, by general consensus at the time, a transfer window for the ages.Milos Kerkez was the £40m future at left-back, Jeremie Frimpong was signed to add dynamism, versatility and speed on the opposite flank and Giorgi Mamardashvili was ready to provide high-quality competition for Alisson Becker in goal.FOLLOW OUR LIVERPOOL FC FACEBOOK PAGE! All the latest news and analysis from Anfield on the Liverpool Echo's dedicated LFC Facebook pageIn Giovanni Leoni, the Reds felt they had snared one of the best defenders under the age of 21 on the continent while the arrival of Isak, at an astronomical fee, supplemented the already ambitious captures of £116m Florian Wirtz and £79m Hugo Ekitike.That the club missed out on Crystal Palace's Marc Guehi, when the plug was pulled at the 11th hour on a £35m agreement, was merely a fly in the ointment to many still flabbergasted by the size of the Isak deal.By late November, however, the Reds were on their worst run in 71 years and nine defeats in 12 left many feeling that Arne Slot may no longer be the head coach to carry the club forward.Nearly four months on, it would be fair to say that disquiet rumbles on, even if it is sometimes unfairly painted as criticism confined only to social media.More recently, Slot has spoken about Liverpool being "in a transition" and needing the Champions League bounty to finish the work undertaken during the 2025 player trading months."We know we are in a transition and a transition works better when there is money available," Slot told TNT Sport last week when discussing the importance of Champions League qualification.It's unclear exactly when Liverpool shifted from title favourites to a side in transition, but the mood inside the corridors of power at Anfield has certainly changed it seems.As champions of England last summer, Liverpool's historic £440m spending spree showed their determination to build a dynasty.

It was a booming statement of intent, even if sales recouped about half of that amount.Despite that, the message was clear: resting on their laurels was not an option, especially when the club broke the British transfer record twice, landing Wirtz in June and then Isak in September.The scale of the undertaking in the window - when eight players arrived and 10 in and around the first-team ranks moved on - meant a dip in results while the kinks were worked out was always expected and accounted for to an extent by senior figures at Liverpool."Results are noisy" is a term Michael Edwards, Fenway Sports Group's CEO of football, uses to explain how a more studious football observer can see patterns and trends emerging in data beyond screeching headlines and scoreboards.It's how, for example, Liverpool's former head of data, Dr Ian Graham, was able to explain to Jurgen Klopp why the first half of his final season at Borussia Dortmund was not quite as poor as the results suggested at the time.Graham used the Expected Goals model in 2015 to allay fears from the decision makers in Boston that Dortmund's campaign - when Klopp guided them to an ultimately disappointing seventh in the Bundesliga - was not a true reflection of how it had really gone.That being said, is there a fair argument to be made that Slot's current Liverpool should be any higher than where they currently find themselves based on the performances across the season? The xG table for 25/26 has the Reds in fourth, 11 behind leaders Arsenal.Slot has constantly made reference to what are supposedly freak occurrences, like Wolves scoring their opening goal at Molineux last week with their first shot of the game near the final 10 minutes of the match.On Tuesday's 1-0 loss to Galatasaray, Slot said: "I don’t think it’s possible so many things can go against us as they have the last two games (against Galatasaray)."The point being that it was simple misfortune to have major decisions go against them in the two games at Rams Park this season: a penalty award that was overturned in September and a goal that was disallowed in March.Such bleatings appear to have infiltrated the thinking in the playing squad itself, with Ryan Gravenberch revealing this week: "Sometimes we have the feeling also on the pitch that the luck is not with us."Once players start believing their own hard-luck stories, however, navigating toward the required results surely becomes much harder.

The Reds, broadly, opted for brains over brawn in the summer window but have left themselves too open to muscular opposition now overpowering them.It raises the prospect of the club altering their approach for what, to use Slot's words, might reasonably be considered the second phase of the 'transition' this summer transfer window. Do Liverpool now prioritise a different, more powerful profile of player?It's a tough decision to weigh up this late into proceedings, given that the March international break has unofficially come to mark the period when clubs begin getting ducks in a row for their forthcoming summer recruitment.Not knowing which European competition they will participate in at this stage is also hampering the progress no doubt.