There is also a view that many signings take time to hit their stride, and not all can have the immediate impact of Salah or Virgil van Dijk. The chief complaint from within the squad seems to be that Andy Robertson has lost his place to Milos Kerkez with the latter yet to demonstrate that he is an adequate replacement. There is also clearly some hardballing going on over contracts, and the future of Ibrahima Konaté, a free-agent in July, is unresolved while his form has tanked.
Drawing a line between performance and the contract politics of the squad is never easy. Not everyone can have the deal they want, no matter what they might have done in the past. Clubs have to push hard on contract value, especially those run without an owner-benefactor, and that can leave some players feeling bruised.
When it comes to the new deals for Salah and Van Dijk, it would be easy to say that should have been different. It is not just the age and cost of those players that influenced that decision. No club likes to lose players for free, and with Trent Alexander-Arnold departing as a free-agent, notwithstanding that early release fee, it is easy to see why those renewals made sense.
This is the moment when the system or recruitment and wage structure and the primacy afforded to data analysis that FSG has established at Liverpool is tested to its greatest degree. There would arguably be no greater triumph than having proven all the sceptics wrong on the wisdom of spending on the likes of Isak, Florian Wirtz and Kerkez. Maybe in 12 months’ time that is where the club will find themselves.
Regardless, the FSG system will endure. It is far from perfect. It learns from its mistakes and that makes it ruthless, which should tell Slot one thing. His predecessor Klopp stepped down when he felt himself no longer able to keep pace. It will not be he who rides to the rescue, but that does not mean that Slot can keep losing games and not be sacked.
Much as FSG would prefer that not to be the case, there are some universal rules that football cannot ignore – and chief among those is that in a slump like this it is the manager who pays the price.
