The curious case of Arne Slot’s Paris romance and Liverpool’s slump

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Arne Slot tries his best not to choke up when he talks of last year’s meeting between Liverpool and PSG. “I hope every fan around the world was hoping this game wouldn’t stop because it was incredible,” he blubbed in March 2025. His team had just lost on penalties to the soon-to-be Bigger Cup winners. “It was the best game of football that I was ever involved in.” If the Slot regime comes to its end this summer, with a significant groundswell of opinion among Kopites nodding in that direction, then it is curious he keeps returning to an infamous European night at Anfield which may well prove the beginning of the end. A few days later, Liverpool deservedly lost a Fizzy Cup final to a much more inspired Newcastle. Things have never quite been the same since, despite a 20th league title being claimed in April.

With Aaron Ramsey having been without a club since the end of last year and now retiring, it looks like we’ve moved from players announcing their retirement who we weren’t even aware were still playing to players announcing their retirement who were already retired but weren’t aware of it themselves”​ – Noble Francis.

Dear Arsenal, how do you sustain this insane consistency in blowing your chances? Every. Single. Time. Players come and go. Managers stay and leave. The only constant is the fans’ anguish. What wizardry will you wield now to hand over the title to Manchester City?”​ – Krishna Moorthy.

Re Thursday’s letters. John Groom is correct that not many Aussies use flamin’, but you don’t have to be Stefan Kuntz, Danny Sh1ttu or Christian Fuchs to know our modern alternatives aren’t always printable” – Rowan Sweeney.

No-one says flamin’ anymore John, but most of us still have a flamin’ sense of humour” – Greg Wyatt.