If football is a game of cycles, Liverpool are currently stuck in the spin cycle of a washing machine that’s threatening to tear the whole house down.

Six months ago, Arne Slot was the Messiah. He had done the impossible: followed the man who walked on water and somehow managed to keep the Reds afloat, delivering a Premier League title in his debut 2024/25 season. The transition was seamless. The "heavy metal" football was tuned down to a more melodic, controlled symphony, and it worked.

But as we head into the winter of 2025, the music has stopped.

Liverpool sit 8th in the Premier League. They have lost five of their last six matches. The 3-0 capitulation to Manchester City at the Etihad wasn’t just a defeat; it was a tactical undressing that exposed the fragile reality beneath Slot’s "control."

The £116m question hanging over Anfield is Florian Wirtz. Signed to be the crown jewel of Slot’s new era—the player to evolve the team from Klopp’s transition monsters into Slot’s possession kings—the German playmaker has instead become a symbol of the team’s confused identity.

With zero goals and zero assists in the Premier League thus far, Wirtz looks lost in the engine room. Slot’s insistence on a rigid 4-2-3-1 has shackled a player who thrives on freedom. Under Xabi Alonso at Leverkusen, Wirtz was a ghost, drifting between lines. Under Slot, he is a pylon, static and easy to mark. The team looks vulnerable defensively whenever he plays centrally, yet Slot persists, seemingly driven by the "sunk cost fallacy" of that massive transfer fee.

Then there is Alexander Isak. The £125m man from Newcastle was meant to be the clinical edge. Instead, we’ve seen a disjointed attack where Isak (when fit) looks isolated, and the burden once again falls on a fading Mohamed Salah. Salah, now 33, is finally showing signs of mortality. He can no longer carry an attack on his own, especially when the service from midfield has become so pedestrian.

The most damning criticism of Slot right now is his refusal to adapt. In his first season, the novelty of his system caught the league off guard. Now, the data analysts have done their work. Teams know that if you sit in a low block and hit Liverpool in the transition, the "control" Slot prizes so highly evaporates.

Defensively, they are a shambles. 18 goals conceded in 11 games is relegation form, not title-defense form. The high line, which worked when the press was ferocious, is suicide when the press is lukewarm. And that’s the crux of it: the intensity is gone. The players look caught between two minds—do we press like Klopp or contain like Slot? In the end, they do neither.

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," they say. Arne Slot is finding that the weight of the Premier League title is crushing. The honeymoon period didn't just end; it crashed into a wall.

The fixture list turns "green" now, with games against Nottingham Forest and West Ham coming up. On paper, this is where the revival starts. But football isn't played on paper, and right now, Liverpool look like a team playing on thin ice. If Slot doesn't find a Plan B—and fast—he might find that his second season is his last.