Arne Slot is right about Liverpool's future — and now he needs to prove it

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Liverpool head coach Arne Slot is under pressure amid a difficult season, but he is right to point to a bright future — now he needs to start to show signs of what's nextLiverpool head coach Arne Slot on the touchline at Anfield(Image: Michael Regan/Getty Images)Liverpool won't get many easier chances — on paper at least — to get points on the board than when it takes on Tottenham at Anfield this weekend. The Reds have to finish above at least one of Manchester United, Aston Villa and Chelsea, and it doesn't matter which.Once the campaign comes to a close, though, and ideally before, Liverpool needs to prove that next season, it is ready to get back to the levels that it expected when it spent $600M or so on new players last summer.READ MORE: Dominik Szoboszlai makes 'angry' admission with clear message about Liverpool disappointmentREAD MORE: Alan Shearer makes 'messy' prediction for Liverpool vs Tottenham with Paul Merson in agreementHalf of that amount was recouped in sales, of course, and the sheer volume of changes among the club's roster has seemingly proved too much, but with a couple of additions to address the lack of balance among the current options, a title challenge could soon be on the cards again.That is certainly what Arne Slot believes.

Under Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool had seasons where it underperformed, but not twice in a row — and always with a strong end to one season bleeding into the next."It was something we were aware of in the back of our mind that that could happen with signing so many new players, but not something we or I was expecting," Slot said when quizzed on the transitional campaign that 2025/26 has become this week."You always know if you let go of so many players and you bring in so many new players, it could mean transition is needed, but the expectations were not that we were having a season as we are having now.Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has endured a difficult campaign(Image: Steven Halliwell/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)"But for all the reasons that I don’t want to bring up every single time we are here — it has become a season like that. And partly for a few percentage, that’s also because we’ve made so many changes."But again, when we made them we knew in the back of our mind, 'OK, it could happen', but we didn’t expect it."It is perfectly reasonable to think that with a couple of pacy wingers signed in the summer, and with Jeremy Jacquet set to add to the Liverpool options at center-back, next season could be different.By then, the hope will be that Alexander Isak can, for want of a different phrase, be like a new signing.

Giovanni Leoni is another whose impact this year has been almost zero, through no fault of his own."I heard, for example — one of the things, but I can come up again with these 10 things — that if the games would have ended after 90 minutes, we would have been second at the moment," Slot said.Get LFC's 2025/26 season home and away kitsThis article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn moreFrom $100LFC.comSee the dealLiverpool's home and away strips for the 2025/26 season are the first in their new partnership with adidas.Fans can order jerseys in the US at Fanatics.com or via the LFC Online Store in both the US and across the world.That isn't quite true, and ignores the fact that Liverpool has conceded so many late goals not purely through bad luck, but because of how it has performed earlier on in fixtures.Faster starts, however, are much more likely with great depth and quality in wide areas — something that Liverpool simply doesn't have at the moment."It’s part of football, but it tells you that I’m 100 per cent sure — usually I say 99.9 per cent sure, but 100 per cent sure — that this will never happen in the season again in the upcoming five or 10 years for Liverpool," Slot continued.There are multiple reasons to think — especially if Liverpool does do enough to secure a top-five finish — that it can perform much better next season with a couple of good decisions.