Sammy Lee on Liverpool and Arne Slot: “Something’s Got to Change”

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 11: (THE SUN OUT) Rafael Benitez (R) manager of Liverpool shares a joke with his assistant Sammy Lee during a team training session at Melwood training ground on December 11, 2009 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images) | Liverpool FC via Getty Images

As Liverpool limp towards the end of the 2025-26 season, now out of Europe with no shot at silverware and facing a difficult task of finishing in the top five and so qualifying for next season’s Champions League, focus shifts to what comes next.

For many, head coach Arne Slot’s position is tenuous at best. Liverpool have appeared to be drifting in the wrong direction for more than a calendar year now, their press declining their fitness falling off their finishing running poor.

Yet even as consistently poor results and poor performances have spiked the mood around the club, there remains doubt. After all, even as they declined towards the end of last season they managed to win the Premier League.

And this is Liverpool Football Club. Historically, Liverpool don’t like to fire managers quickly. For some, that they’re not like Chelsea or Manchester United in that sense is a point of pride.

“We’ve been coaches so I understand the pressure he’s under and that the buck stops with the manager,” was former Liverpool midfielder and coach Sammy Lee’s take on the situation. “But listen, I know we’re Liverpool Football Club and we don’t [fire managers], but something’s got to change.

“Because one thing that is so un-Liverpool is that 26 our of 31 games we’ve been out-run. It’s so un-Liverpool where one guy, a 40-year-old, even if he’s a fitness fanatic like [James Milner], you know he’s out-running all of our midfield. So something’s gotta change.