Arne Slot was still planning pre-season when Liverpool sacked him. Transfer targets, training schedules, the lot. FSG pulled the trigger anyway — and the timing was almost certainly dictated by one name: Andoni Iraola.
The former Bournemouth manager has just walked away from the Cherries at the end of his contract, and he won't be on the market long. Bayer Leverkusen and AC Milan were already circling. Liverpool moved because they had to, not necessarily because the moment was right.
Why Slot couldn't survive a difficult second season
The bare facts are awkward. Liverpool spent somewhere in the region of $600 million on new players last season — Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong — and still only scraped into the Champions League. After winning the title in his first year, Slot watched his squad fail to gel, his new signings take time to find their feet, and the Anfield faithful turn restless.
The death of Diogo Jota cast a shadow over the whole club. Salah's decline and eventual exit was another distraction Slot handled reasonably well in the circumstances, but it sapped momentum at a critical point.
Critics will say he just rode Klopp's wave in year one. That's too simple. The squad had finished third and fifth in the two seasons before Slot arrived. He came in, changed the minimum, and won the league. The second season was always going to be harder with a squad being rebuilt in real time.
Had those two seasons come in the other order, he'd still have a job.
The Iraola connection runs deep
This isn't Liverpool hiring a name they like the look of. Richard Hughes, the sporting director who signed off on Slot's dismissal alongside CEO Michael Edwards, was technical director at Bournemouth when Iraola was appointed. He knows how the 43-year-old operates. That relationship matters — it's the kind of institutional trust that makes a manager appointment feel considered rather than reactive.
Iraola built Bournemouth into a European club playing attacking, direct football with a clarity that made them far more watchable than their resources should have allowed. That style fits what Liverpool supporters want to see.
The question is whether he can handle the step up in scrutiny, squad politics and expectation. Bournemouth were a success story with nothing to lose. Anfield is a different animal entirely.
Slot still has a year left on his contract, so he's not rushing anywhere. Liverpool, though, have made their call. Iraola's odds as next permanent Liverpool manager are already shortening fast — and for good reason.
