Is Slot Winning This Liverpool Dressing Room?

The hardest thing to shake, as a supporter watching from the outside, isn’t a dodgy result or two. It’s the feeling that the message isn’t landing. That’s where Arne Slot is starting to get questioned, because you can live with change, but you can’t live with a squad that looks unconvinced.

A lot of people want to hear the defence case: what are the positive signs that say this is building towards Liverpool being challengers again? Because right now, the concern is he’s looking a bit out of his depth, and not in the normal “new league, new pressure” way. More in the sense of: are the players actually buying what they’re being sold?

Belief comes before tactics

In any workplace, never mind a football dressing room, if you don’t believe in the boss’s ideas you’ll still turn up, still do the basics, but you won’t go that extra yard. And that extra yard is basically the Premier League. If the press is half a second late, or the line is five yards too deep, you get punished.

That’s why the vibe matters. When it looks like the lads aren’t invested in the plan, it stops being about formations on a whiteboard and becomes about trust. Do the players think this way of playing helps them win? Do they think it suits them? And do they think the manager is adapting quickly enough?

The importance of the No 2

There’s also a fair point about assistants. People love to scoff at coaches because of what happened in a previous job, but a good No 2 can be massive. They’re often the daily link with the squad, the person who clarifies messages, calms things down, and tells players the truth without it becoming a confrontation.

So it’s not wild for fans to wonder how much difference a strong assistant makes, especially when the atmosphere looks a bit strained. Sometimes the manager’s ideas are fine, but the bridge between idea and execution is shaky.

Favourites, senior voices, and the risk of a split

The other worry is the human side: favourites. Every manager has them, but if it becomes too obvious, it can divide a group quickly. You start getting cliques, you start getting players feeling they’re on a different set of rules, and suddenly the “togetherness” that Liverpool have leaned on for years looks fragile.

The fan concern, put simply, is whether there’s a power struggle brewing as senior players edge towards the later stages of their careers. If the manager is trying to move things on and some of the old guard aren’t fully on board, that can become messy fast. And once that doubt gets into the squad, it shows up in the football.

At this point, the key question isn’t whether Slot has a philosophy. It’s whether he can get everyone pulling in the same direction, quickly, before the season becomes a slog.

Written by Dougie_Do_ins: 12 January 2026