Sacking Arne Slot now is a non-starter - but Liverpool hierarchy cannot 'avoid the noise'

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The ECHO's Liverpool FC correspondent Paul Gorst assesses the fall-out from Saturday's 2-1 loss to BrightonThe words of Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler, fresh from beating Liverpool 2-1 on Saturday lunchtime, would not have sounded out of place had they been uttered by his opposite number, Arne Slot."That's football," Hurzeler said. "When you stay calm, when you don't overreact, when you avoid the noise, when you focus on the kind of things you can control - these sort of [improvements] can happen."It was a little over a month ago since the youngest head coach in the Premier League was being subjected to chants of being "sacked in the morning", such was the depth of frustration on the terraces of the Amex Stadium.But having won four of the last five since a 3-0 beating at Anfield in the FA Cup on February 14, the mood around the south coast has shifted it seems.An embattled Slot might feel there is much to gain then from blocking out the noise and refusing to overreact himself, particularly when the other side of the international break offers so much for Liverpool to be excited by in the shape of two quarter-finals with Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, in the FA Cup and Champions League, respectively.Those sort of high-profile, glamorous cup ties, near the business end of the campaign, is what players and coaches worked so hard to reach in the darker, colder months and given how Liverpool have generally performed in both of those competitions compared to the Premier League - where they have now lost 10 times - it is becoming obvious this squad prefers the carrot over the stick.Turn on the bright lights of the Champions League and it's showtime: the Reds' victories over Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Inter is proof of that, as is the nature of their second-leg demolition of Galatasaray last week to secure passage to the last eight.But the bread and butter of the league, where negativity has generally polluted the discourse in the build up most weeks, has been a much tougher watch for supporters and one point from games with a rock-bottom Wolves, a relegation-threatened Tottenham and Brighton is simply not good enough of late.It gives Slot a heap of work to sort through when he returns to work at the AXA Training Centre during this international break.

Those who work with the Dutchman speak of someone who remains on an even keel regardless of results but Saturday's reverse was no one-off.In its own vacuum, the loss at the Amex Stadium could be explained away by the absence of key men like Mohamed Salah, Alisson Becker and Alexander Isak, to name just three, and the short turnaround between games of around 62 hours did the squad no favours for a 430-mile round trip.Throw in the fact that Slot was forced to concede he was afforded just 20 minutes of training time as a result, and there were some mitigating factors for the performance and the result on the south coast.But a pattern has long since been established this season at Liverpool and had they not won their first five games back in the early weeks of the campaign, it beggars belief where the champions would be sitting in the Premier League table right now.Virgil van Dijk spoke about his frustration at a lack of consistency in the wake of Saturday's defeat but the truth is Slot and his players have been exactly that for too long. The same patterns and problems have blighted the head coach all season and the malaise took firm hold months ago.Chelsea's own struggles mean the Reds may yet end this tortuous league campaign with something to show for it but it will not be cause for celebration.It is a limp towards the promised land right now and with Chelsea, Manchester United and Aston Villa all still to come in May, few chickens should be counted right now.When Liverpool searched for Jurgen Klopp's successor, it was one that took the best part of six months before Slot emerged as the preferred candidate and the enormous dossier produced on the Dutchman by the club, which was said to have been around 60 pages, was indicative of how meticulous they were in their recruitment drive.It's why the idea of dispensing with Slot now and bringing in a stop-gap appointment in the manner of United with interim boss Michael Carrick is simply a non-starter.

The time for judgement will come at the end of the season.Unfortunately for Slot and those above him in the Liverpool hierarchy, however, attempting to "avoid the noise" as Hurzeler did so adeptly is becoming much harder to do at Anfield.