Liverpool will regret sticking with Arne Slot and allowing Chelsea to move for Xabi Alonso

When Alonso parted company with Real Madrid on January 12, it was easy for journalists loyal to Liverpool to dismiss calls for the club to fire Slot and hire the Spaniard as a typically knee-jerk reaction from 'E-Reds', a derogatory term for the more impatient element of the club's online fanbase.

It was repeatedly pointed out that Liverpool weren't in the habit of sacking managers - and especially not those that had won a championship the season before. Despite overseeing the club's worst run of results for 71 years, meaning the title defence was over by November, Slot apparently still had plenty of credit in the bank and the argument was that the fans should have felt indebted to the manager for giving them one of the best days of their lives.

However, emotion never should have been allowed to dismiss evidence. Whether they were sitting on the Kop or the couch, supporters could see with their own eyes that Liverpool were lost and, five months on, Slot is still no closer to finding any solutions - which is why even the more prudent matchgoing fans have lost faith in the former Feyenoord coach.

Liverpool weren't even beaten by Chelsea at the weekend - and yet they were rightly booed off the field after another shamefully disjointed display against the most out-of-form team in the league.

However, the most significant show of disapproval came in the 66th minute when the fans reacted furiously to Slot's decision to substitute Rio Ngumoha, who had once again provided the few rays of light on an otherwise gloomy afternoon. The Dutchman claimed afterwards that the teenager had been struggling with muscle cramps shortly before his withdrawal but, in a way, the reason for his removal was irrelevant.

The mere fact that the fans felt compelled to not just question the coach's decision but openly berate it underlined that they no longer trust Slot's judgement. As far as they were concerned, it was entirely feasible that he would take off his most dangerous attacker rather than the consistently inconsistent Cody Gakpo.

It's also worth pointing out that the majority of Liverpool fans actually understand - if not appreciate - Slot's reluctance to overburden Ngumoha at such a formative stage of his career. The boos were actually more of a reflection of the frustration with the coach's conservatism and the general passivity of his team's play.

Time and time again this season, Liverpool have lacked intensity, resulting in the Reds drifting in and out of games. Tellingly, it's something that a previously supportive press pack are now calling Slot out on - much to his increasingly obvious irritation. Indeed, Slot was incensed by the suggestion that he had instructed his players to sit back after taking an early lead against Chelsea thanks to an unusually aggressive start.

"Yeah, I said it after we scored the 1-0 and then we got a big chance for the 2-0," he said, sarcastically. "Didn't you see me screaming off the sideline? 'Go back, go back, defend your own box, defend your own box.' Are you really serious?! Of course, it's not the idea for us to back off.

"We wanted to keep going but we played against a team that got more and more comfortable on the ball. They didn't have any wingers available, so they had a lot of midfielders, so they controlled the midfield and started to play and [were] passing through us more and more and more, which didn't lead to a lot of chances but they were by far the dominant team in the game.

"It was difficult to change that during the first half but I think you might have noticed as well, apart from other things you've noticed, that at half-time we changed things.

"[It was] not perfect because they were still a few times able to play through us, but not as much as in the first half. That was the adjustment we made at half-time, which helped us being the more dominant team in the second half but not able to score. We were twice close.

"But I think it's not fair to me that anyone could ever think that I tell my players to back off and to drop down and not to press them.

"Either you haven't seen my teams playing last season and large parts of this season, let alone since I'm a manager. But it did look like that, that we dropped down, but that's never the intention."

The obvious question is, though, if it's not the intention, why does it keep happening?

Injuries have obviously played a part in Liverpool's struggles this season, as the unavailability of several key players - and at regular intervals throughout the campaign - has affected the team's cohesion and, consequently, consistency. However, the numerous absences have only reinforced the perception that this is a mentally and physically frail side.

Slot's possession-orientated approach initially appeared to reduce the strain on the squad, but so many players have looked jaded this season, neither fit nor strong enough to cope with the rigours of playing every three-to-four days.

Some have attributed this to declining standards at Anfield, with the outgoing Mohamed Salah having insinuated that some of his team-mates are not quite as keen to hit the gym as himself, while captain Virgil van Dijk has openly admitted that if Liverpool are to avoid a repeat of what he considers an "unacceptable" season, a lot of work will have be done "behind the scenes".

Again, Slot reacted angrily to the implication that a rot had set in at Anfield. "Does Virgil [van Dijk] mean the same as what Mo is saying? And what Mo is saying is that standards are really important for a football club," Slot said. "I cannot agree more with him! I did not hear him say that the standards are not okay now. Did you?

"I'm not worried about it, let's put it that way. I'm not worried that the standards will be lower next season than they were this season, or the season before or the season before. No. I'm not worried about it. At all."

The fans are, though - and rightly so.

Slot said after the humiliatingly lame loss to Michael Carrick's painfully average Manchester United side that he knows exactly where Liverpool have to improve.

"We are already working hard on that in these last few weeks, because we have a bit more training time," he told Sky Sports. "But the same issues are coming back and that's not a complete surprise because there's not a lot you can change during the season.

"For us, for me, it's quite clear where we have to improve. And we will next season."

However, when asked if he'd care to share what precise improvements he's working on, Slot replied, "No, it doesn't make sense to share them." He really should have done, though, for his own sake, because it might have helped alter the supporters' perception of Slot as a man who's run out of ideas.

As it stands, they've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that he's capable of reversing Liverpool's season-long slump. The Reds are still being out-run and, thus, regularly overrun, by nearly every opponent.

They've essentially become a soft touch, "an easy team to play against", as former United captain Roy Keane put it after the 3-2 loss at Old Trafford. Basically, a game against Liverpool is just the tonic for an ailing side such as Wolves, Spurs or Chelsea.

The sad thing is that Liverpool's limp conclusion to their calamitous campaign is utterly unsurprising. It was entirely predictable, in fact - the inevitable consequence of the club's inaction.

Liverpool's limitations were laid bare during that historically poor run of form between September and November, and the powers that be at Anfield should have either sacked the coach or backed him in the January transfer market.

Instead, a season that could have been saved one way or another has been completely wasted, with the team allowed to drift towards disaster, and that's why there is no longer any confidence in either the manager or those above him.

The supporters were essentially told via the press that the cup games against Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain would prove crucial to determining Slot's future and yet despite losing all three of those games without scoring a single goal - while conceding eight - the manager's job is now said to be safe.

Consequently, Jamie Carragher isn't the only Liverpool fan fearing a repeat of the Erik ten Hag mess at Manchester United, who were eventually left with no choice but to fire the Dutchman after ignoring all of the red flags during his shambolic second season at Old Trafford.

Credit to Slot, he's admitted that there's nothing he or his team can do in Liverpool's final two league games to atone for this atrocious, trophy-less campaign. However, he says that "if we can have the summer that we are planning to have, then I'm 100 per cent convinced that we will be a different team next season than we are now."

The fans, though, are already anticipating more of the same slop - just with the added fear that when the club does eventually accept that it's time for a change, Alonso will no longer be available to come to the Reds' rescue.

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