Will Liverpool sack Arne Slot after Brentford defeat? Extraordinary counter claims made as FSG plan sensational move

Liverpool are wobbling and the noise is deafening. Four straight league defeats have shredded the early optimism around Arne Slot and opened the door to every rumor imaginable. The question has shifted from if Liverpool will act to how quickly FSG would pull a trigger if performances keep sliding. That is the backdrop. Now the twist. The speculation has started to pull in a very different name. Erik ten Hag.

Ten Hag is not an obvious Liverpool target. He is Manchester United’s manager and a lightning rod in his own right. But modern football does not care about neat boundaries. When a giant club looks vulnerable and another giant looks restless, the rumor mill starts to stitch wild scenarios together. That is exactly what is happening as FSG study their options while supporters demand clarity.

The Brentford loss hurt more than the scoreline. Liverpool looked brittle between the lines. The press lacked cohesion. The back line could not hold a compact shape. The midfield disconnected from the front three. It was the fourth example in a row of a team second guessing itself. That is when ownership groups start running contingency models and calling agents they claim not to know.

Inside Anfield there is talk of patience. Slot still carries credit from last season’s title and the Champions League demolition of Eintracht Frankfurt showed there is quality on the training ground. But patience is not a plan. FSG care about trend lines. The trend is ugly. Declining chance quality. Soft concessions in transition. Senior players slipping out of form at the same time. Those patterns scare boards more than any single defeat.

Enter ten Hag as a narrative device that some insiders love to float. His advocates point to a coach who can impose structure, hard rules, and repeatable patterns. They argue that his football would squeeze more from Liverpool’s ball winning profiles and reestablish discipline in the half spaces. They also whisper that United’s own turbulence keeps his future in play, which invites opportunists to test the water.

The counter argument is brutal and it matters. Ten Hag has struggled to build an attack that sustains pressure over months. He has also fought too many off pitch fires. Liverpool under FSG value low drama cultures and incremental improvement. If you think they would swap Slot’s turbulence for a different brand of turbulence, you have not been paying attention. That is why most reputable voices still insist Slot remains the present and likely near future.

Fan sentiment complicates everything. Klopp is the ghost in every room. Chants of his name surfaced again during the Brentford game. That is not fair to Slot but it is real. When supporters dream of a quick fix they lean on what they know. Klopp said a return to any club in England other than Liverpool is off the table and called a theoretical return possible one day. Possible is not the same as probable. Possible keeps the dream alive and keeps the pressure on the current manager.

Squad questions are pouring fuel on the fire. Florian Wirtz has not found rhythm. The Salah succession plan still looks theoretical. Links to wide forwards appear every week and very few of them make football sense for January. When recruitment looks fuzzy, coaches look exposed. That is how unstable cycles feed on themselves and how ownership groups get spooked into short term thinking.

Here is the blunt truth. If Liverpool keep leaking goals and failing to control middle thirds, FSG will move. Not because a social account with a big follower count demanded it. Not because a podcast clipped a juicy line. They will move because every metric they trust will be screaming the same message. The identity is fading. The structure is cracked. The points are disappearing.

Where does that leave ten Hag. As a name in the rumor economy. A pressure tool. A headline that makes both fanbases click. Could FSG ever explore it if United wobble. Football has seen stranger crossings. Should Liverpool build a plan around it now. That would be reckless. The smart play is to fix the on pitch issues inside the international window, set clear minimums for the next five games, and hold everyone to those markers.

Slot still has a path out. Re tighten the distances between the center backs and the six. Restore a double pivot in build when protecting a lead. Simplify the pressing triggers to regain confidence. Elevate one in form wide runner to start regardless of reputation. Put set piece detail back on the whiteboard every day until the group is sick of it. If performances stabilize, this storm blows over and the ten Hag chatter dies the quiet death it deserves.

If the slide continues, the conversation changes from theory to execution. Then every name gets pulled into the circle. Klopp will be mentioned. Ten Hag will be mentioned. A left field candidate will be mentioned. FSG will claim they are calm while making midnight calls. That is the cycle. That is the job. And unless Liverpool fix the football in the next phase, the job will belong to someone else sooner rather than later.