Liverpool's Season of Regrets: Champions League Qualification Secured
Arne Slot walked into the press room with Champions League qualification secured but a title defence in ruins. Fifth place. A flat 1-1 draw at home to Brentford. A farewell that never caught fire.
He did not try to dress it up.
"Not what I would have loved us to achieve this season before we started," he admitted, before adding that, given everything that had happened, he was at least satisfied with a return to Europe's top table. It was an honest line from a coach who knows this campaign will be remembered as much for what went wrong as what went right.
A season of decisions – and regrets
Slot did not hide behind perfection. "We, I, haven't been perfect," he said, stressing that no manager or player ever is. But his choices have left deep marks on Liverpool’s season, and on its dressing room.
History will keep circling back to Mohamed Salah. The decision to bench the club’s talisman in November and December, in the middle of a catastrophic run of nine defeats in 12 matches, became the defining flashpoint. Liverpool were losing, Salah was watching, and the tension finally snapped.
The forward publicly criticised his head coach. The club’s response was swift: a de facto one-match suspension. From there, the relationship never truly recovered. Salah began negotiating an exit from a lucrative contract that still had a year to run. For a player who has defined an era at Anfield, it was a bleak, fractured ending.
Slot’s faith in several under-performing players only sharpened the debate. While others struggled, precocious teenager Rio Ngumoha watched from the fringes until injuries and form forced the manager’s hand. By the time the youngster was trusted with a bigger role, it felt less like bold planning and more like the last available option.
Slot insisted every call came from preparation and conviction. "All the decisions I've made throughout the whole season has been only with one idea, and that's being very well prepared," he said. He refused to claim they were all correct. Before each one, he believed in it. After some of them, the table and the mood told a different story.
Grief, injuries and a campaign derailed
The Dutchman pointed to a season scarred by events no tactical tweak could fix. Before a ball was kicked, Liverpool were shaken by the death of Diogo Jota in a car crash on the eve of pre-season. The emotional toll on the squad is impossible to quantify, but impossible to ignore.
Then came the injuries, relentless and unforgiving. British record signing Alexander Isak missed 28 matches and started only eight league games. The spine of Slot’s plan never properly formed.
Alisson Becker, the goalkeeper who so often bails Liverpool out, sat out 20. First-choice right-back Conor Bradley missed 32. Jeremie Frimpong was absent for 19, Wataru Endo for 18. New 19-year-old centre-back Giovani Leoni saw his debut – and his season – end after just 81 minutes.
"If you asked me one word to describe this season, I would describe that with the word 'injury'," Slot said. It was not an excuse so much as a blunt summary. At times, he barely had decisions to make; the medical room made them for him.
Salah’s quiet farewell, Liverpool’s familiar flaw
On the pitch, this final home outing captured the story of Liverpool’s year in miniature.
All eyes were on Salah, one last Anfield appearance before his departure. He did not score, but he did what he has done so often: he created. A clever contribution, an assist for Curtis Jones, and Liverpool were in front after the break.
The lead lasted six minutes.
Kevin Schade rose to head Brentford level, and with it came the familiar sense of a side unable to sustain control, unable to turn promising positions into decisive wins. A title defence that had started with ambition ended with another lost advantage and another draw that felt like a missed opportunity.
Fifth place and Champions League football will soften some of the financial and sporting blow, but the sense of what might have been hung heavy in the evening air.
Brentford’s step forward
For Brentford, there was a different mood. A win would have delivered a first-ever European campaign, but even without it, Keith Andrews saw progress in a ninth-place finish.
"It shows we are a good football club," he said, stressing how dangerous it is to assume a top-half place is routine. He pointed towards clubs now marooned in the Championship after getting ahead of themselves. Brentford, by contrast, have now finished in the top half two years running. "Pretty special," as Andrews put it.
They left Anfield with a point and with their trajectory intact.
Liverpool, though, leave this season with more questions than answers. Slot has his Champions League spot, but also a bruised dressing room, a reshaped attack on the horizon, and a fanbase wondering how quickly he can turn reflection into a genuine new beginning.
