Arne Slot comment shocked journalists and hints at change in thinking at Liverpool

This week’s Blood Red column assesses the importance of the FA Cup to Liverpool’s season – and potential Arne Slot’s future

Among the very few gripes Arne Slot still holds about what Liverpool did and didn’t achieve last season, the FA Cup exit to Plymouth Argyle features somewhere near the bottom. The Reds boss has made no secret of his disappointment with how the team acquitted themselves against Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup final in March, often lamenting a lack of physicality on the day at Wembley, against a side and club who were spurred on by the prospect of a first domestic trophy in 70 years.

The defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, on penalties, has also become the stuff of infamy for Slot, who has regularly harked back to that shootout loss to the Ligue 1 team, who went all the way and won the European Cup in a one-sided final against Inter.

The 1-0 reverse at Plymouth, on a day that saw the likes of Trent Kone-Doherty, Isaac Mabaya feature from the bench and Trey Nyoni and James McConnell start? That hasn’t rankled quite as much.

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With a Carabao Cup final to come the following month and the prospect of the knockout stages of the revamped Champions League also to follow, the world’s oldest domestic cup was viewed as collateral damage for the then Premier League leaders.

Aside from the hardy souls who made the trek way down south, there was a collective Liverpool shrug at full time at Home Park on February 9 as they quickly turned their gaze towards the bigger fish they wanted to fry.

Eleven months on, as the Reds prepare to begin their 2026 FA Cup campaign at home to League One strugglers Barnsley, the landscape has shifted for Slot and his squad.

Their Premier League trophy will be handed back to either leaders Arsenal, now six points clear, or Manchester City, and there is no potential for a League Cup showpiece on the agenda either, having bowed out to Crystal Palace during the middle of a harrowing period of nine defeats in 12.

Liverpool do remain embroiled in a battle for qualification to the knockout phase of the Champions League and they also look like a safe enough bet to ensure they finish inside the top four in the Premier League to put their name in the draw for next season’s continental competition.

So the FA Cup might take on greater significance than it has for some time at Anfield. It’s four years in May since Kostas Tsimikas stroked home the decisive penalty in the shoot-out against Chelsea to confirm the Reds as domestic double winners under Jurgen Klopp.

And while the FA Cup, for a club of Liverpool’s stature, is often viewed as a chance for the fringe players and the youngsters in its early rounds, a hungry and determined squad are undoubtedly good enough to win the thing outright, provided they have the right motivation.

‘A cup run’ is not exactly what the bean-counters who preside over the balance sheets would prioritise at Anfield, but with the Reds some distance from the shake-up at the top of the table, they should be looking at the FA Cup in a different light this season.

That viewpoint is something Slot himself has seemingly aligned himself to with his reference to the competition catching some by surprise in his pre-Arsenal press conference on Wednesday.

“Of course (getting a positive result at Arsenal) would mean a lot, because if you win those games that tells you that you can compete in the latter stages of the FA Cup and the Champions League with any other team as well,” Slot said.

It was comment, alongside the first mention of the FA Cup earlier in the press conference, that hinted at a change in thinking behind the scenes where the competition and its value is concerned.

For now, Slot simply needs to focus on the early rounds and avoid the sort of pitfall that Rafa Benitez strode on to the last time the Tykes visited in the FA Cup, 18 years ago.

And at a time when big question marks remain over the long-term direction of this Liverpool team under his guidance, a second trophy in successive years would represent significant personal success for Slot, just as the head coach enters the final 12 months months on his Anfield deal. It certainly wouldn’t hurt his end-of-term appraisal, that much is clear.

Up for the cup? It hasn’t necessarily been fashionable in recent years to say yes, but Liverpool and Slot must now ask themselves why not exactly?