Graeme Souness refuses to answer Arne Slot Liverpool question as he blasts 'excuse after excuse'

Frame Souness

Graeme Souness refused to comment after being asked if Arne Slot needs to win the Champions League to keep his job at Liverpool.

Even though the Dutchman led the Reds to Premier League glory last season, this campaign has brought plenty of problems for Slot.

Not only are his side already out of the title race, but they are also in a battle to secure Champions League football next season.

And last week’s last-gasp defeat to Wolves was the Reds’ ninth league defeat of the season

As a result, Slot has come under mounting pressure at various points across the current campaign and, ahead of Liverpool's 1-0 Champions League loss at Galatasaray on Tuesday night, Souness refused to answer when asked live on talkSPORT if Slot needed to win Champions League to save his job.

Souness

"I won’t answer that one,”

"I just know that they have to improve."

“Before he added: "He had a glorious year last year. You don't get a job normally as a football manager with a club going well, but that was one of the rare occasions where he walked into Anfield and inherited a great, great situation.”

"I don't think it changed too much looking at last year from my eyes and this year you can bet he has done everything the same, starting training at the same time using the same words, using the same training methods and preparation for games.

"It's not happened. So he'll be scratching his head saying why have they dropped off so

Pushed if he believes Liverpool could change their head coach, Souness replied: "I’m not going to get into that. I know what you want me to say.

“I think Liverpool is a great football club and historically they give the managers lots and lots of time to get it right.”

While the former Reds skipper has earlier said: "I thought he was very good last year. It was the perfect storm for them to win the league last year, but they were consistent.

"You don't win the league by accident and then it's just been excuse after excuse this year. He said he had 30 preparation notes and he's thrown 27 or 28 in the bin.

“Teams are not saying to Liverpool ‘we're at Anfield today. Let's give them a really nice game of football and let's play the way they want us to play’.

"They've come up with obstacles and it's not new. When I was at Liverpool, the likes of Terry Mac (McDermott) hated playing at Anfield. He hated it because he had nowhere to run because people sat deep.

“Did they try to play football against us? No, they would launch everything into the box. They would put a few of us on our backsides to see if we really fancied it on the day. If you play for Liverpool that is the price on the ticket.

"You're going to be confronted by raw aggression, not so much in the modern game, and you're gonna be confronted by people wasting time. You're gonna be confronted by people launching into the box. Deal with it, embrace it.

"No, it's coming and get on with it and do the business. They're not as aggressive when they don't have the ball. When you close down you have to do it collectively."

He then continued: "They talk about players and Liverpool's midfield being good at this and good at that. Some of them are very good on the ball, but not so good at working hard when you don't have the ball and making life good.

"They're not the same team. You have to point out that (Mohamed) Salah has not turned up this year. The numbers tell you that.

"How many games in the last seven years has he been the difference in terms of creating or scoring a goal that would change a game? That's a big problem for them.

“But they have to stick together at this time. It wouldn't be beyond them to win the Champions League because they've still got that 90 minutes of greatness in them and it could happen whenever the game."

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