For Liverpool's bitterly frustrated fans, watching Chelsea end a six-game losing streak by claiming a thoroughly deserved point at Anfield on Saturday was bad enough. However, Monday's news that the Blues are now exploring a deal to appoint Xabi Alonso as their next permanent boss has come as an even bigger blow to a set of supporters struggling to see any light at the end of the tunnel right now.
Alonso was meant to be the solution to all of Liverpool's problems, the former Kop idol who'd marked himself out as one of the brightest young tacticians in the game by leading Bayer Leverkusen to an undefeated double.
The classy Spaniard had been the fans' first-choice to succeed Jurgen Klopp as coach back in 2024; since the turn of the year, though, he was considered the only possible option to replace Arne Slot at the helm.
Consequently, the revelation that the Reds aren't even in the running for Alonso is as mystifying as the club's intention to stick with Slot for another season...
When Alonso parted company with Real Madrid on January 12, it was easy for journalists loyal to Liverpool to dismiss calls for the club to fire Slot and hire the Spaniard as a typically knee-jerk reaction from 'E-Reds', a derogatory term for the more impatient element of the club's online fanbase.
It was repeatedly pointed out that Liverpool weren't in the habit of sacking managers - and especially not those that had won a championship the season before. Despite overseeing the club's worst run of results for 71 years, meaning the title defence was over by November, Slot apparently still had plenty of credit in the bank and the argument was that the fans should have felt indebted to the manager for giving them one of the best days of their lives.
However, emotion never should have been allowed to dismiss evidence. Whether they were sitting on the Kop or the couch, supporters could see with their own eyes that Liverpool were lost and, five months on, Slot is still no closer to finding any solutions - which is why even the more prudent matchgoing fans have lost faith in the former Feyenoord coach.
Liverpool weren't even beaten by Chelsea at the weekend - and yet they were rightly booed off the field after another shamefully disjointed display against the most out-of-form team in the league.
However, the most significant show of disapproval came in the 66th minute when the fans reacted furiously to Slot's decision to substitute Rio Ngumoha, who had once again provided the few rays of light on an otherwise gloomy afternoon. The Dutchman claimed afterwards that the teenager had been struggling with muscle cramps shortly before his withdrawal but, in a way, the reason for his removal was irrelevant.
The mere fact that the fans felt compelled to not just question the coach's decision but openly berate it underlined that they no longer trust Slot's judgement. As far as they were concerned, it was entirely feasible that he would take off his most dangerous attacker rather than the consistently inconsistent Cody Gakpo.
It's also worth pointing out that the majority of Liverpool fans actually understand - if not appreciate - Slot's reluctance to overburden Ngumoha at such a formative stage of his career. The boos were actually more of a reflection of the frustration with the coach's conservatism and the general passivity of his team's play.
Time and time again this season, Liverpool have lacked intensity, resulting in the Reds drifting in and out of games. Tellingly, it's something that a previously supportive press pack are now calling Slot out on - much to his increasingly obvious irritation. Indeed, Slot was incensed by the suggestion that he had instructed his players to sit back after taking an early lead against Chelsea thanks to an unusually aggressive start.
"Yeah, I said it after we scored the 1-0 and then we got a big chance for the 2-0," he said, sarcastically. "Didn't you see me screaming off the sideline? 'Go back, go back, defend your own box, defend your own box.' Are you really serious?! Of course, it's not the idea for us to back off.
"We wanted to keep going but we played against a team that got more and more comfortable on the ball. They didn't have any wingers available, so they had a lot of midfielders, so they controlled the midfield and started to play and [were] passing through us more and more and more, which didn't lead to a lot of chances but they were by far the dominant team in the game.
"It was difficult to change that during the first half but I think you might have noticed as well, apart from other things you've noticed, that at half-time we changed things.
"[It was] not perfect because they were still a few times able to play through us, but not as much as in the first half. That was the adjustment we made at half-time, which helped us being the more dominant team in the second half but not able to score. We were twice close.
"But I think it's not fair to me that anyone could ever think that I tell my players to back off and to drop down and not to press them.
"Either you haven't seen my teams playing last season and large parts of this season, let alone since I'm a manager. But it did look like that, that we dropped down, but that's never the intention."
The obvious question is, though, if it's not the intention, why does it keep happening?
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