For the second straight season, Paris Saint-Germain sent Liverpool packing from the Champions League on their home soil — but this year’s exit was far more devastating, ending the Merseyside club’s hopes of any trophy this campaign and casting major uncertainty over the future of manager Arne Slot.
Ousmane Dembele scored both goals in PSG’s 2-0 second-leg win at Anfield on Tuesday, wrapping up a lopsided 4-0 aggregate victory that exposed a yawning gap in quality between the two sides. The French champions did not even need to hit their full stride to eliminate the Reds, a stark contrast to 12 months prior, when Liverpool fell to the eventual tournament winners only on penalties, leaving with their heads held high.
Slot’s tenure got off to a promising start, with Liverpool claiming the Premier League title in his debut season last year. Buoyed by that success, the club’s ownership launched a historic £450 million ($605 million) summer transfer splurge, aiming to build on the foundation Jurgen Klopp left after his trophy-laden tenure and push for both domestic and European glory. Liverpool broke its own transfer record twice, landing Alexander Isak for an English-record £125 million from Newcastle United and Florian Wirtz for another nine-figure fee, while adding Hugo Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez to create a new-look squad. It was the biggest single-window spend by any club in history.
But the campaign was overshadowed by tragedy before it even began: fan favorite Diogo Jota died in a car accident while returning to Merseyside for pre-season training. While the emotional impact of losing a beloved teammate can never be measured, it has hung over the club all season, and on-pitch results have descended into chaos.
The disappointing campaign has already triggered a raft of high-profile exits. Mohamed Salah, who signed a two-year contract extension just 12 months ago, has cut his time at Anfield short a year early. Tensions between Salah and Slot boiled over in December when the Egyptian winger launched an angry outburst after being dropped from the starting lineup, and he was left on the bench for both legs of the PSG tie. Long-serving full-back Andy Robertson has also confirmed he will leave at the end of the season, meaning only Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and Joe Gomez remain from the Liverpool squad that lifted the Champions League trophy in 2019.
Key departures of key first-team stars Trent Alexander-Arnold and Luis Diaz left a major hole in the squad, and the rebuild’s thin depth has been stretched even further by a devastating string of injuries. When Slot fielded all five summer signings in the starting XI for the first time against PSG, the experiment lasted less than 30 minutes before Ekitike went down with a suspected ruptured Achilles, an injury that will almost certainly rule him out for the rest of this season and well into the next.
“It is part of our season,” Slot told reporters after the defeat. “We had Alex, Hugo and Florian together for only 88 minutes before tonight. We added 28 minutes and I would be surprised if we can add a few more minutes to that (this season).”
Isak, the club’s record signing, made his first start back after a broken leg that kept him sidelined since December. Frimpong’s first season at Anfield has been ruined by recurring muscle injuries, forcing another half-time substitution against PSG. While Wirtz has avoided major injury problems, he has failed to replicate the form that made him the star of Bayer Leverkusen’s Bundesliga title-winning side two seasons ago.
Liverpool currently sits fifth in the Premier League table, with only one remaining goal for the season: securing a top-five finish to qualify for next season’s Champions League. Holding a four-point lead over sixth-placed Chelsea, the Reds are still favorites to claim that spot — but it remains unclear whether Slot will be the one leading them into it.
Speculation over Slot’s future has been growing for weeks, with Liverpool fans chanting for former Reds midfielder Xabi Alonso during the club’s 4-0 FA Cup defeat to Manchester City earlier this month. Alonso, who left his role as Real Madrid head coach in January, is widely tipped as the leading candidate to replace Slot if the club’s hierarchy decide to sack the Dutchman just 12 months after he won the Premier League.