Inside Liverpool's season of pain: Diogo Jota's tragic death and a dreadful defence of their Premier League title

28.05.2026, 15:22 skysports.com

After being part of the guard of honour for Andy Robertson and Mohamed Salah, Arne Slot headed back towards the touchline.

Liverpool's embattled head coach didn't join the players on the traditional lap of appreciation following last Sunday's 1-1 draw with Brentford.

As Robertson and Salah continued to accept the acclaim of Anfield, the Dutchman sat alone in the dugout. His desire to ensure the spotlight remained on two outgoing legends was understandable, but the contrast from 12 months earlier was stark.

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Back then, Slot had been in the thick of the celebrations - his name chanted repeatedly by the Kop as he raised the Premier League trophy to the heavens. The transition from the Jurgen Klopp era had been seamless, with Slot becoming only the fourth Liverpool manager to lead the club to title glory in their debut season at the helm.

When the champions then embarked on the biggest transfer spending spree in their history last summer, the expectation was that the good times at Anfield would keep on rolling. However, from such dizzy heights, the fall from grace has been dramatic.

Liverpool limped home fifth in the Premier League - confirming Champions League qualification on the final day with just 60 points, their lowest tally for a decade and 24 fewer than in 2024-25.

Their total of 63 league goals scored was 23 down on last season and their worst since 2015-16. Defensively, 53 league goals conceded (compared to 41 in 2024-25) was the most they have ever shipped in a 38-game season in the Premier League era.

There were 19 morale-sapping defeats in all competitions (20 if you count the Community Shield). Since Liverpool were last promoted to the top flight in 1962, the only campaign in which they have lost more matches was in 1992-93 (20).

Slot, who was the target of boos and jeers at the penultimate home game against Chelsea, has lost plenty of support among the fanbase and a growing number are calling for him to be replaced.

The Athletic has spoken to a wide range of sources, many speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, to tell the inside story of a season like no other for Liverpool.

"Were we dealt a difficult hand? 100 per cent. Should we have played our hand better? Absolutely," says one senior club official. "Nobody is under any illusions. There are mitigating factors but it hasn't been good enough."

It started with tragedy. On the morning of Thursday July 3, 2025, the news broke that Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva had died in a car accident in Spain. They had been en route to Santander to catch a ferry to England for the start of pre-season training when the Lamborghini they were travelling in careered off the road.

Jota had married his childhood sweetheart Rute Cardoso in their home city of Porto less than a fortnight earlier and they had three young children. Professionally, the 28-year-old had followed up clinching the Premier League title with Liverpool by helping Portugal win the Nations League. It was all so unimaginably cruel.

As the area behind Anfield's Main Stand was transformed into a shrine with thousands of tributes, behind the scenes, sporting director Richard Hughes and Slot spearheaded the club's response. The first wave of pre-season testing was cancelled and a flight was chartered for the following day for players and staff to attend the joint funeral.

"A friend to everyone," was how Slot described Jota and that was a fitting summation of his universal popularity. When the squad reported back to Kirkby five days after his death, the training complex was a scene of utter devastation. The traditional six-minute race test, where players try to cover as much ground as possible within the allotted timeframe, was shelved. Having a competitive edge just didn't feel right.

As well as turning to the club's head of medicine and performance Jonathan Power and psychologist Lee Richardson, Liverpool brought in grief counsellors to ensure there was sufficient support.

"If you can't, if it's too much, there's no pressure on anyone," Slot told his players when training restarted. "My door is always open. You've got the doc and the psychologist too. Come and talk to us." The message was "do it like Diogo" - be authentic. Grief hits people in different ways and no one would be judged. There would be empathy and compassion in abundance.

The tears flowed on and off the pitch at the opening friendly against Preston North End. For seven minutes after the final whistle, players and staff stood on the edge of the penalty area applauding the Liverpool supporters amassed in the Bill Shankly Kop as the Jota song remained on loop.

Getting back out there became a place of refuge but pre-season remained incredibly difficult as the squad headed to Hong Kong, Japan and then Wembley for the Community Shield, which they lost on penalties to Crystal Palace.

Jota's family returned to Anfield for an emotion-fuelled opening Premier League game against Bournemouth when there was the poignant sight of Salah breaking down in front of the Kop. With the empty locker in the dressing room and Jota's song being chanted in the 20th minute of every match, he was never far from anyone's thoughts.

"What we went through last summer, I hope no other team will ever go through," Robertson told reporters last week. "Football didn't matter. We didn't care about football for weeks. None of us wanted to train. That was the reality."

Players had been reluctant to talk about it over the course of the season because they didn't want to be accused of making excuses as the team's fortunes nosedived. But one of the most heart-wrenching chapters in the club's history is a factor, not an excuse.

"We lost one of our brothers - a big part of us," midfielder Curtis Jones told LFCTV after the draw with Brentford. "He was unbelievable as a human being and unbelievable as a player. To lose him, I'm standing here now and I can feel it in me, I feel emotional when I speak about it."

Towards the end of last season, Slot talked about needing to add "extra weapons" to his squad. It's ironic, given how events transpired, but his vision involved them becoming more dominant and ruthless as an attacking force.

Twice, Liverpool shattered their transfer record last summer with the £100million purchase of Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen, potentially rising to £116m with add-ons, followed by the £125m deal for Alexander Isak from Newcastle United after an acrimonious summer-long saga. The club's revamped attack also included the £79m arrival of Eintracht Frankfurt's Hugo Ekitike.

With Giorgi Mamardashvili, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez, Giovanni Leoni and Freddie Woodman also on board, Liverpool's total outlay climbed to around £449m, including add-ons. No club in the Premier League era had ever splashed out more in a transfer window.

The spending was offset by generating around £220m from sales, with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, Caoimhin Kelleher, Jarell Quansah, Tyler Morton and Ben Doak among those to depart.

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It was widely viewed as an exciting statement of ambition from the champions. The only frustration at the end of the summer window surrounded missing out on the signing of England defender Marc Guehi after Palace chairman Steve Parish U-turned at the 11th hour and blocked his £35m move to Anfield when he was midway through his medical.

When Palace did agree to sell Guehi for £20m in January, Liverpool opted not to rival Manchester City for his signature because of the overall cost of the transfer, including wages and agent fees. Instead, Liverpool bought Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes for £60m, with the France Under-21s defender staying in his homeland until this summer.

Liverpool's defensive priority a year ago had always been to recruit a young centre-back, having previously shown interest in Levi Colwill, Leny Yoro and Dean Huijsen, and they were delighted to get Leoni from Parma. However, the Italian teenager suffered a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury on his debut against Southampton in the Carabao Cup in September.

The impact of missing out on Guehi and then losing Leoni was accentuated by Joe Gomez's fitness issues and Ibrahima Konate's alarming downturn in form in the first half of the season. "He's been a bit too much at the crime scene," was Slot's blunt assessment as Konate's list of costly errors continued to mount. As well as the uncertainty of being in the final year of his contract, the France international also had to deal with the personal anguish of his father Hamady passing away in January.

With FSG's CEO of football Michael Edwards responsible for how funds are allocated and sporting director Hughes tasked with negotiating deals, criticism regarding recruitment can't be placed at Slot's door.

Isak, the most expensive player in the history of British football, contributed just four goals in 22 appearances (13 starts). Having missed most of pre-season after going on strike to try to force the move, the Swedish striker was unfit and, as they tried to build him up, he broke down with a groin problem.

Just when Isak appeared to be regaining sharpness before Christmas, he fractured his ankle after a challenge from Tottenham's Micky van de Ven. Another comeback followed in April but it didn't last long. Remarkably, he still hasn't completed 90 minutes in a Liverpool shirt.

Ekitike has been the only real success story among last summer's arrivals - top-scoring with 17 goals before his season was cruelly ended by a ruptured Achilles in mid-April.

There's a sense internally that Wirtz's adaptation to English football was made tougher by his arrival at a time when the Premier League was becoming more physical, more direc