Jamie Carragher has delivered a stark warning over Liverpool’s direction under Arne Slot, questioning whether the club has drifted too far from the identity forged in the Jurgen Klopp era.

The former Liverpool defender was speaking after a 3-2 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford, a result that leaves Slot’s side clinging to a Champions League place and extending a grim record away to top-half teams. Liverpool are without a win in eight such league trips this season and have already suffered 11 Premier League defeats.

For Carragher, the concern runs deeper than results. He believes the squad has been built without a clear plan and lacks the physical edge that once defined Klopp’s Liverpool. He argued that recent recruitment has focused on “good players” rather than the right profile, leaving the team short of power and intensity in key areas.

Carragher also placed the current situation in a wider European context, noting that other giants such as Real Madrid, Manchester United and Chelsea have stumbled through managerial changes, often turning to inexperienced or stopgap appointments. Against that backdrop, he suggested Liverpool fans are anxious not to miss out on Xabi Alonso, whose work elsewhere has made him a symbol of a possible return to a more defined style.

Yet Carragher insisted Liverpool cannot spend the next decade chasing a replica of Klopp’s football. Any new manager, he said, must be allowed to impose his own ideas. The problem, in his view, is that Slot’s preference for a more technical, possession-based approach risks pulling the club further away from the high-octane, physically dominant model that brought so much success.

That tension is visible in individual performances. Carragher singled out Florian Wirtz, the £116m signing, arguing that the German playmaker has been given an “easy ride” and remains merely “neat and tidy” a year into his Liverpool career. In contrast, he pointed out that even an under-par Mohamed Salah has still been among the side’s most dangerous attackers.

Slot, for his part, has acknowledged recurring issues and insists he knows precisely where improvements are needed, though he has declined to spell them out publicly. With Liverpool’s away form deteriorating and their once-ferocious pressing game blunted, the pressure is mounting on the Dutchman to prove that his vision can restore both results and identity at Anfield.