Nearly two weeks have passed since the most depressing Liverpool season in more than a decade came to a fittingly disappointing conclusion against Brentford at Anfield. They spent nine months burning my head out, they burned your head out, to be honest it felt like they even burned their own heads out. So it was right that they ended things by dropping points at Anfield for the ninth time in the campaign, squeezing into the Champions League via the back door with the lowest points total for a fifth-placed side since Martin Jol’s Spurs in 2006/07.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle and we’re all having to come to terms with the fact that we exist in a world in which Lego Head is a league-winning manager, it’s time to look forward and start the arguments discussions about how the Reds fix everything that was wrong this season and make sure the same mistakes aren’t repeated.

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Like it, lump it or loathe it, Arne Slot is going to be Liverpool manager when match day one of the 2026/27 season rolls around. That’s what I’d initially written this morning before I took the dog for a walk. I returned to a text from my brother simply containing the words “well fuck a duck” and immediately knew that the next few hundred words I’d written were for the bin.

Arne Slot is no longer the Head Coach of Liverpool Football Club. It’s a decision that, while sad given that he took the club to it’s 20th league title and navigated the tragic death of Diogo Jota with dignity, felt like it was necessary if the club wants to move forward. Slot’s Liverpool had been found out. Since about March last year, teams had understood how to be successful against his team yet still Liverpool continued to step on rake after rake after rake. There were undoubtedly mitigating circumstances, but at the same time there had been no indication over the past year that Slot had any idea on how to reverse those fortunes and return the Reds to the top of the table.

By all accounts, Andoni Iraola is the man at the head of the queue to replace Slot. There have been mentions of Sebastian Hoeness at Stuttgart and Pierre Sage at Lens, but Iraola seems to be the primary target. There’s no doubt that his appointment is a big gamble. The style of football that he has moulded Bournemouth into over the past three years is very much what a lot of the Liverpool fan base wants to see with the shadow of Jurgen Klopp’s teams still looming large over Anfield, but Iraola has never managed in a situation even close to comparable with the scrutiny he will face at Liverpool. Nor has he had his methods tested in an environment where his players are required to play every three days. It is a huge gamble.

It took Bournemouth ten games to register their first win under Iraola in his first season on the south coast but he was given the time and patience to build the team and coach the players into how he wanted them to play. Needless to say, that will not be repeated in L4.

But neither is that to say Iraola cannot be a success with Liverpool. There’s a reason Liverpool fans want a return to front-footed, aggressive football. It won. It won a lot. And while the league may be trending towards teams full of centre backs competing for set pieces, Iraola has shown this season by taking Bournemouth to sixth place and European football for the first time in their history that attacking football can still flourish. What’s even more impressive is he achieved that having lost pretty much his entire defence over the course of last summer and then losing Antoine Semenyo to Manchester City in January. All the while his side took on the biggest clubs in the country and, on many occasions, beat them.

However, for Iraola to instill the sort of football that he wants at Liverpool, there has to be significant change to the squad for the second successive summer. In an interview with Miguel Delaney of The Independent in January 2025, Iraola said “I sometimes value much more a player carrying the ball and forcing things to happen. I think sometimes when you play too positional… you sometimes lose the initiative from players to just take their man on and attack the spaces.”

That does not sound like the 2025/26 version of Liverpool. Iraola loves a winger who can excel in 1v1 situations and while that may suit Rio Ngumoha down to the ground, he’s still a child and there isn’t another senior winger on Liverpool’s books who fits that bill. The club needs to bring in a minimum of two wingers who suit that style, and given the injury status of Hugo Ekitike, probably a third who can also spend time in the central role until the Frenchman is fit again.

Wingers aren’t the only deficiency in the squad though. There remain doubts over the future of midfielders Alexis Mac Allister and Curtis Jones and it was painfully obvious at times that the Reds need more legs and energy in the middle of the park. It’s why I remain skeptical over the rumoured interest in Adam Wharton. As good as the Crystal Palace man is on the ball, he’s another midfielder who needs someone to do his running for him.

Furthermore, with the news that Ibrahima Konate will become the latest to leave the club on a free transfer at the end of his contract, an experienced centre back is a crucial addition. Giovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet may well be two of the best young defenders in the game but both lack experience and both are coming off serious injuries. To go into a season with them and Joe Gomez, who is so fragile he may as well be made of crisps, as the partners to Virgil van Dijk would verge on criminal. We’ve seen how going into a season understaffed at centre back looks. It’s Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak. It’s Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams. It’s not pretty.

Richard Hughes and Michael Edwards, Liverpool’s Sporting Director and FSG’s Global Head of Football, have nowhere left to hide with Arne Slot having paid the price for what were, in part, also their failings last season. More than anyone remaining at the club it is them who have to learn the lessons of the mistakes they have made and ensure they are not repeated. If the next man in the Anfield dugout is to be a success, it’s on them to provide the right tools for the job.