Arne Slot was conspicuous in his absence as the Liverpool manager pulled out of attending an awards ceremony on the heels of his side’s dismal 3-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon.
The head coach is the recipient of this year’s Northern Football Writers’ Association manager of the year award after he oversaw the Reds’ miraculous Premier League campaign in his debut season.
But months later, Liverpool are in the thick of a challenging squad rebuilt and adrift on the pitch, having lost eight of their last 11 matches.
In Slot’s place, Liverpool sent club ambassador Gary McAllister to collect the award on his behalf, after the 47-year-old confirmed that he would not be attending the event at 4pm on Sunday afternoon.
Daily Mail Sport understands McAllister was attending Leeds’ match against Aston Villa, and contacted at half-time to step in for Slot as his replacement.
McAllister shared the manager’s apologies with the event’s attendees, as well as a brief message from the Dutchman, which took in how he is ‘extremely proud’ to have won the award.
Among the honourees at Sunday night’s event were Daniel Farke of Leeds, whose side also fell to defeat this Premier League weekend, Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson, and Newcastle’s Eddie Howe.
The last high-profile Premier League manager to attend the awards ceremony was Erik ten Hag, who picked up an honour last year for his winning the FA Cup during Manchester United’s 2023-24 season.
In a cruelly ironic twist, Ten Hag was sacked by Man United hierarchy just days later, and replaced with current manager Ruben Amorim.
In the wake of the defeat at Anfield to Forest, who recorded their first back-to-back win at the ground since 1978, Slot shouldered much of the blame in his post-match remarks.
‘I want to emphasise I am responsible for the current losses,’ he shared. ‘You are responsible when you are winning but also responsible when you are losing.
‘I can never come up with enough excuses for us to have the results we have. That is far from good enough and I am responsible for that.
‘It is my responsibility if we win or lose. What I also see is the team – and the fans stayed until the end – keep on trying until the end. It wasn’t at Manchester City (a fortnight ago) but in every other game we have played we have been the dominant team and were able to create chances.
‘Lately, almost constantly, we miss our chances and the ones that go that we conceded – that will not continue all season. But we need to have that moment of energy, scoring a goal. If you are playing well and score a goal to go 1-0 up the other team (gets deflated).
‘But the opposite thing happened… they got a big energy boost from scoring 1-0. I see a lot of things where in a normal situation the result would have been different but we are now in a difficult situation and you need to do even more when things are not going in your favour.’
