Arne Slot's 2026 Liverpool excuses ranked — Wind, xG and Pep Guardiola

A list of Liverpool coach Arne Slot's excuses from a challenging second season at Anfield as pressure continues to mount on the former Premier League-winning manager

Arne Slot may be on his last legs at Liverpool(Image: Getty Images)

The 2025-26 season hasn't been one to remember for coach Arne Slot and Liverpool, even after spending over £450 million ($611 million) in the summer transfer window.

As the Reds plunged out of the Champions League and have struggled to even muster a top-four race in the Premier League, Slot has grown increasingly desperate and has relied on a host of excuses.

He has avoided one: the sudden preseason death of Diogo Jota. "he last thing I would do is use it as an excuse," he said in November. However, Slot has relied on every other excuse, taking a page out of the Jurgen Klopp handbook. Here are some of his best:

No. 4: 3-2 Premier League loss to Brentford, October

Slot went on an all-time excuse spree after a 3-2 loss to Brentford in October, starting before the game. His Reds lost the previous game 2-1 to Manchester United, and the Dutch manager bemoaned his opponent's lineup tweaks.

"We've seen Sesko play the last three, four, five or six times, but they go to Liverpool [and] they change the line-up," he said. "That's not the first time we've faced a team, and they've done that." Brentford took the low-hanging fruit and trolled him post-match, tweeting, "Must have been that unchanged team then."

Slot looks on during Liverpool's fall loss to Brentford(Image: Getty Images)

After the match, he called the penalty conceded "soft," hit out at the team playing five of six fixtures away, and cited that the summer changes had impacted the team's form. "“It definitely (our form) also has to do with if you change quite a lot in the summer. I think it’s not a surprise that it can go a bit like this," he said of the team's four-match losing streak.

No. 3: 3-0 League Cup loss to Crystal Palace, October

Slot opted for a near-fully changed XI against Crystal Palace in an October League fixture. He cited Pep Guardiola as part of his rationale, as the Manchester City coach's changes were enough to see out a win against Swansea.

"I saw [Manchester] City’s line-up, and I don’t think they had one starter from the weekend, but it felt as if – if you look at their line-up – that they had played with their 11 starters," Slot said.

Arne Slot opted for a changed XI against Crystal Palace in the League Cup(Image: Getty Images)

While the Cityzens were missing most of their regular starters, 18-year-old Divine Mukasa started in midfield.

No. 2: 4-0 FA Cup loss to Manchester City, April

Liverpool was hammered 4-0 away to Guardiola's City side in the FA Cup. "Again, we are facing a team that outperformed their xG by a mile, and that is happening constantly," Slot said post-match.

He was right for the City game: Guardiola's team scored four goals from 1.97 xG. How about Brighton the week before in a 2-1 loss? The Seagulls tallied 2.17 xG.

Three weeks prior, Liverpool scored five goals against West Ham from 1.84 xG — the Hammers finished with 1.86 and scored twice.

No. 1: 3-2 Premier League loss to Bournemouth, January.

Speaking of, Liverpool lost the xG to Bournemouth by an unsightly 0.83-2.30 figure. Still, Slot was full of excuses. One of them was about fitness: "It is safe to say a few players of ours ran out of energy. I cannot criticize them for that because two days ago we played an away game in Europe," he said.

Slot defended Virgil van Dijk with a comment about the wind. “It is not completely fair to Virgil to blame him for the first goal,” Slot said. “You can see throughout the game how much impact the wind had. He wasn’t the only one who struggled with the wind."

Truly a scholar of the Jurgen Klopp handbook.