James Pearce drops major hint on timing of Xabi Alonso’s managerial appointment

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The question is no longer whether Arne Slot’s Liverpool tenure is under serious pressure.Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Chelsea — a result that left the defending Premier League champions still without Champions League football mathematically confirmed with two games remaining, made that abundantly clear.The question now is one of timing, and one of the most respected Liverpool journalists in the business has offered a significant clue about what FSG’s decision-making process could look like in the weeks ahead.Writing for The Athletic in the aftermath of Saturday’s Anfield meltdown, James Pearce stopped well short of calling for Slot’s immediate dismissal, but the subtext of his analysis pointed unmistakably in one direction.Pearce noted that if FSG delay a decision and find themselves forced into a mid-season managerial change next year, “the calibre of candidates available is highly unlikely to be comparable to those out of work this summer.”His next line landed with particular weight, “Xabi Alonso, who would be a popular choice among supporters, will surely be in a new job.”The implication is hard to misread.If Liverpool are going to make a change, and if Alonso is the man they want, this summer is the window.Wait until December, and Alonso who is currently without a club after leaving Real Madrid, will almost certainly have committed elsewhere.The backdrop to all of this is a season of stark, measurable decline.Last season, Liverpool won the Premier League title with 88 points, scoring 86 goals across 38 games — an average of 2.26 per match.This season, with two games remaining, they sit on 59 points, a drop of 29 points on last season’s final tally.Their goals scored tally has fallen sharply, and they have created an xG of just 0.56 in Saturday’s game against Chelsea — a team that arrived at Anfield having lost six consecutive Premier League matches and scored just once in that run.Three shots on target.One goal from a set piece.Against the most out-of-form side in the division.The injury context is real and must be acknowledged.The squad depth that looked adequate on paper has been exposed brutally in practice.Slot has had legitimate grievances to make.But Pearce’s analysis cuts through that mitigation with a sharp historical comparison.In May 2015, Liverpool drew 1-1 with Chelsea with three games remaining under Brendan Rodgers, before losing 3-1 to Crystal Palace and 6-1 to Stoke City to finish sixth.FSG kept Rodgers that summer, believing in his credit from the near-title win of 2013-14.By October 2015, with Liverpool 10th on 12 points, he was gone, and Jurgen Klopp was available to save them.Pearce is clear that no such safety net exists now.“There certainly won’t be a saviour in the mould of Jurgen Klopp waiting to pick up the pieces,” he writes.The mood inside Anfield on Saturday underlined how quickly things have deteriorated.Pearce described the atmosphere as the most mutinous he had witnessed since Roy Hodgson’s final weeks in late 2010.The midfield statistics from the Chelsea game were damning, Alexis Mac Allister won just one of nine duels, Szoboszlai one of seven, and Gravenberch five of eleven.Cody Gakpo had six touches in the entire first half.Ibrahima Konate, whose contract expires on June 30, was jeered for his hesitancy, was also seen arguing with Virgil van Dijk about defensive positioning throughout and subbed off fo Joe Gomez after an injury scare.Slot himself, to his credit, did not hide.“Yes, I do,” he said when asked if he believed he could win back supporters who have turned against him.“Not this season, by the way.”‘But if we can have the summer that we are planning to have, then I’m 100 per cent convinced we will be a different team next season than we are now.”Whether FSG give him that summer — and whether Xabi Alonso is still available if they ultimately decide they cannot — is the question that will define Liverpool’s next era.Pearce has not said Slot should go.But he has told Liverpool, quietly and clearly, that if they want Alonso, the clock is ticking. James Pearce Xabi Alonso