Arne Slot sacked: Five games that led to Liverpool manager's departure including Man City, PSG, Spurs, Chelsea and PSV

Liverpool struggled throughout 2025-26 after winning the Premier League the season prior, and the club finally made the decision to sack manager Arne Slot on Saturday.

The Reds boss was able to secure qualification to the Champions League, but it still seemed inevitable that he would depart after a slew of dire results towards the back end of the campaign.

Fans at Anfield - known for supporting their team and manager against the odds - booed the former Feyenoord coach on more than one occasion, and the atmosphere around the club had become increasingly toxic as the months wore on.

Here, after Slot was sacked, Sports Mole takes a look at five games that led to the Liverpool manager's departure.

Liverpool 1-4 PSV - November 26, 2025 (Champions League's league phase)

Liverpool kicked off 2024-25 with a remarkable run of seven consecutive victories, the majority of which were earned by last-gasp heroics from the likes of Federico Chiesa, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk.

However, when the Reds welcomed PSV Eindhoven to Anfield in November 2025 for a Champions League showdown, they headed into the game in shocking form and in desperate need of a turnaround having lost 3-0 against Nottingham Forest at the ground four days earlier.

A win was not a necessity, but being thrashed 4-1 by an Eredivisie side at Anfield - which is renowned as fortress the world over - was a humiliating and demoralising result.

Captain Van Dijk produced a bizarre handball that allowed Ivan Perisic to open the scoring from the penalty spot mere moments into the contest, though Dominik Szoboszlai equalised just 10 minutes later, and the Reds went into half time on level terms.

Unfortunately for the Merseysiders, their parity did not last long after the break, as Guus Til was played through by Mauro Junior to put the visitors back in front, before a mistake from Ibrahima Konate allowed Ricardo Pepi to hit the post, and Couhaib Driouech to fire home the rebound.

Slot then opted to take off Konate for Chiesa in a last-ditch attempt to rescue the game, but an increasingly open defence enabled Driouech to make it 4-1 in second-half stoppage time.

Questions were already being asked about the manager's future when he recorded a run of six defeats in seven games prior to the start of November, but convincing wins against Aston Villa and Real Madrid in the weeks before the PSV clash had quelled the noise to an extent.

Suffering a ninth loss in 12 games, though - and in such embarrassing fashion - only served to confirm the original doubts that fans had about the boss.

Liverpool 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur - March 15, 2026 (Premier League)

By March, Liverpool fans had resigned themselves to aiming for Champions League qualification as the main target for the season, with many feeling that if the manager could secure a spot in the top four in a convincing manner then he may be able to turn things around.

Slot could not find the consistency needed to do so, and after a shocking 2-1 defeat against bottom-of-the-table Wolverhampton Wanderers on March 3, as well as a 1-0 loss in the first leg of the Champions League's round of 16 against Galatasaray, the Reds needed to stabilise against Tottenham Hotspur.

Knowing that top-four rivals Chelsea and Aston Villa had dropped points, Liverpool had the chance to steal a march, and when Szoboszlai found the back of the net with a brilliant free kick early in the first half, victory was in their hands.

The Reds had a number of chances to finish the game off, with Cody Gakpo striking the post and Guglielmo Vicario making a number of saves, but Alisson Becker was also called into action more than once, impressively denying Spurs from close range moments before the interval.

As the hosts squandered their opportunities, tension grew inside the stadium, and when former Everton star Richarlison fired home a 90th-minute equaliser, the Anfield faithful were furious.

After the full-time whistle was blown, the crowd rang out with boos for Slot, the first prominent example of the animosity that had been brewing towards the manager spilling over into the Merseysiders' home ground.

Liverpool's 1-1 draw with Spurs in mid-March also saw Igor Tudor pick up the only point of his short-lived tenure with Tottenham, a damning indictment of the Reds' sullied standards.

Man City 4-0 Liverpool - April 4, 2026 (FA Cup quarter-final)

The Merseysiders were able to overturn their deficit in the Champions League's round of 16 with an impressive 4-0 victory over Galatasaray on March 18, and the Salah-led performance seemed to indicate that the team had potentially turned a corner.

However, that hope was snuffed out almost immediately as Liverpool were beaten 2-1 by Brighton & Hove Albion three days later, before heading to the Etihad Stadium for their FA Cup quarter-final against rivals Manchester City.

The Reds started brightly but saw a run from Salah cut short by a great challenge from Abdukodir Khusanov, while Hugo Ekitike later rifled a strike over the crossbar.

That effort was in vain however, as Van Dijk fouled Nico O'Reilly in the box, giving Erling Haaland a simple task from 12 yards to score his first of the game.

A second for City's talisman followed just seven minutes later, and after Liverpool failed to rally at half time, Antoine Semenyo put the Sky Blues three-goals up, before Haaland completed his hat-trick prior to the hour mark.

As if to rub salt into the wounds, Matheus Nunes fouled Ekitike in the box, but Salah missed the resulting penalty.

Liverpool were the underdogs against Pep Guardiola's side that day, and morale was low, but few could have anticipated the manner in which Slot's men capitulated.

The Reds' midfield was repeatedly torn apart, leaving the backline exposed to wave after wave of City attacks, while the frontline proved ineffectual once again.

The then-champions had suffered heavy defeats against the Sky Blues in the past under Jurgen Klopp, but it felt as though the XI on the pitch surrendered the contest, and it was admitted after the fact by captain Van Dijk that the players indeed 'gave up'.

Fans exited the stadium early after witnessing the torrid display, chanting for Xabi Alonso on their way out of the ground, and when Szoboszlai made a seemingly disrespectful gesture towards the away end at full-time, it was clear that the spirit of the club had been broken.

PSG 2-0 Liverpool - April 8, 2026 (Champions League quarter-final first leg)

Mere days after the disaster at the Etihad, Liverpool were set to face the champions of Europe at the Parc des Princes, but rather than a fired-up performance designed to show some semblance of fight, supporters were treated to a cowardly display.

Slot opted to utilise a three-man backline for the first time in his Reds career away to Paris Saint-Germain, and it felt as though the manager was aiming to avoid a thrashing that would do further damage to his reputation, rather than attempting to win the game.

To make space for the additional centre-back, Salah was dropped from the lineup, a move that would seem even more bizarre when his substitute appearance in the second leg saw him play more balls into the box (12) and produce more expected assists (0.52) than any other player for either side across the entire 180-minute tie.

In any case, Liverpool conceded an early goal from Desire Doue, whose deflected shot looped over Giorgi Mamardashvili, though the Georgian shot-stopper was able to keep his team in the game with a number of first-half saves.

However, he could not prevent compatriot Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from doubling Les Parisiens' lead with 65 minutes on the clock, and the scoreline could have been significantly worse had Ousmane Dembele been more clinical when he fired over the bar and hit the post during the second period.

In the end, the Reds were still beaten 2-0 by PSG in the first leg, during which their overly defensive setup led to a putrid performance that generated zero shots on target.

Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea - May 9, 2026 (Premier League)

Perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back, Liverpool's 1-1 draw with Chelsea on May 9 spurred the Anfield crowd to boo Slot multiple times, a reaction that led to shock and outrage from pundits such as Jamie Carragher.

The Reds were out of all cup competitions by that stage, and needed to guarantee Champions League football in order to fuel their summer transfer plans.

However, Slot was unable to get the better of a managerless Chelsea side that arrived at the ground on the back of a six-game Premier League losing streak, and appeared to be tactically outmatched by Calum McFarlane, the Blues' interim boss that had not even completed his UEFA coaching badges.

Ryan Gravenberch opened the scoring with just six minutes on the clock after being teed up by youngster Rio Ngumoha, curling an effort beyond Filip Jorgensen from the edge of the box.

Things looked promising for Liverpool early on, but a number of missed chances to double the lead created a sense of unease in the stadium, given that the crowd had seen their side drop points from a series of similar positions throughout the campaign.

Almost inevitably, the hosts were made to rue those squandered opportunities when Enzo Fernandez's free kick somehow curled into the back of the net from distance, and the Reds failed to find their way back into the driver's seat for the remainder of the contest.

After an uninspiring 67 minutes, the manager decided to take 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha off for Alexander Isak, and considering that the teenager had been Liverpool's best player (and only spark) to that point, fans booed Slot en masse.

To make their point known even more clearly, sections of the Anfield crowd chanted Ngumoha's name, highlighting that the object of their ire was Slot himself.

Fans were heard once again booing the manager at the full-time whistle, and Slot promised in the aftermath that he could turn things around.

Liverpool followed that stalemate with an embarrassing 4-2 defeat against Aston Villa, before going on to draw 1-1 with Brentford in their final game of the season, and it was perhaps telling that Slot sat on the bench as his players greeted fans after the campaign's closer, knowing that his relationship with the crowd was likely beyond repair.