Liverpool’s ‘Last Dance’ has disintegrated but succeeding Klopp looks less

The impossible job no longer looks quite as daunting.

Barring a miraculous turn of events, Arne Slot, the man identified by Liverpool as the perfect successor to Jurgen Klopp, won’t be taking over the Premier League champions this summer.

Instead, the current Feyenoord manager looks set to inherit a squad who are limping towards the consolation prize of Champions League qualification to accompany their Carabao Cup final triumph in February. The issues are glaring and the room for improvement is sizeable.

In the space of a grim six weeks, Klopp has gone from potentially signing off with an unprecedented quadruple to his farewell tour quickly unravelling.

It started with a self-inflicted defeat to arch-rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup. Then came the error-strewn Europa League exit at the hands of Atalanta. Now their title challenge also lies in ruins after taking just four points from the 12 on offer in a swift rematch with United and against Crystal Palace, Fulham and now Everton.

This was not how it was supposed to end.

The TV documentary makers, who have been filming behind the scenes at Liverpool since December, thought they would be capturing a valuable, victorious and historic goodbye. However, The Last Dance, as some players and staff have called it  — a reference to the hit Netflix series about Michael Jordan’s triumphant final season with basketball’s Chicago Bulls — has involved far too many missteps.

At Goodison Park on Wednesday, they fell flat on their faces. The Merseyside derby has given Klopp so many memories to cherish during his eight-year reign. He once had to shell out an £8,000 fine to the Football Association for deciding to celebrate a dramatic late winner by Divock Origi by manically running all the way to the centre circle to embrace his goalkeeper, Alisson.

Klopp had lost just one of his first 18 meetings with Everton before last night, and no fans were there to see it happen as the game took place behind closed doors at Anfield during the COVID-19 pandemic. But his last taste of this fixture provided one of the most gut-wrenching lows of his tenure.

“You lost the league at Goodison Park,” crowed the jubilant home crowd as Everton celebrated their first home win over Liverpool since October 2010.

Everton fans after beating Liverpool: “You lost the league at Goodison Park” ????

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— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 24, 2024

Liverpool began that day joint-bottom of the league, and a beleaguered Roy Hodgson fielded a line-up including Paul Konchesky, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Joe Cole. The failings were grimly predictable with the club in chaos.

This was very different. This was Liverpool in title contention in the final month of a campaign and seeking to crank up the pressure on rivals Arsenal and Manchester City after Sunday’s morale-boosting win at Craven Cottage. What they produced against relegation-threatened opposition was…