Just one year ago Liverpool was closing in on a record-tying 20th English league title.
Now coach Arne Slot is in a battle to salvage the season and, perhaps, save his job.
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Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk, center, reacts at the end of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Liverpool's Ibrahima Konate bows his head at the end of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk stands on the pitch after the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot gestures after the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot reacts during the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
A 4-0 defeat to Manchester City last week saw Liverpool crash out of the FA Cup. And a 2-0 loss to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday has pushed the Merseyside club to the brink of a Champions League exit in the quarterfinals.
Add to that a title defense that unraveled early in the campaign and it is little surprise that speculation has mounted regarding Slot's future even after he delivered the Premier League title in his first year in charge.
After defeat in Paris, Slot admitted his team was in “survival mode”.
His situation has not been helped by the availability of Xabi Alonso, the former Liverpool player who was regarded as a leading candidate to succeed Jurgen Klopp when the club icon stepped down as manager in 2024. Alonso is a free agent after being fired by Real Madrid this season and his stock remains high after winning the German title with Bayer Leverkusen.
While Liverpool has given no indication that Slot's job is at risk, the Dutchman has acknowledged that failing to secure a spot in next season's Champions League would be unacceptable.
The best chance of qualifying for the competition appear to be via Liverpool's finishing position in the league, with England's top flight set to be given a bonus fifth spot because of its teams' performances in Europe this season. But even that is not guaranteed for Liverpool, which currently sits fifth, just one point above Chelsea.
Slot had already said in February that he needed near-perfection from his players to secure a return to European club soccer's top competition, but Liverpool hosts Fulham on Saturday after three straight defeats in all competitions.
Arsenal can extend its lead at the top of the standings to 12 points over second-place Manchester City with a win against Bournemouth. City plays Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
New Tottenham coach Roberto De Zerbi takes charge of his first game away to Sunderland on Sunday, with the club hoping for an immediate bounce to boost its fight to avoid relegation.
But it could be in the bottom three by time that game kicks off, with 18th-place West Ham hosting bottom team Wolves on Friday with the chance to leapfrog Spurs.
Mohamed Salah will be back at Anfield for the first time since announcing he would leave Liverpool at the end of the season. Whether he features against Fulham remains to be seen after he was an unused substitute against PSG. His loss of form this season has been a factor in Liverpool's disappointing campaign, while a public row with Slot also cast a shadow over the season.
Arsenal was without Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber against Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday and both were being assessed ahead of the Bournemouth game. Chelsea's Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah missed the FA Cup win against Port Vale last week, with coach Liam Rosenior saying the game came too soon for them as they recover from hamstring and ankle issues, respectively.
Liverpool fans plan to protest ticket price rises, starting with the game against Fulham.
Supporters group The Spirit of Shankly has called on match-going fans to refuse to spend money inside the stadium in order to send a message to the club's American owner Fenway Sports.
“This is a small act, but if enough people do it, it sends a clear message,” it said.
James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk, center, reacts at the end of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Liverpool's Ibrahima Konate bows his head at the end of the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk stands on the pitch after the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot gestures after the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot reacts during the Champions League quarterfinal first leg soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency said Thursday that protecting Tehran’s right to enrich uranium is “necessary” for any ceasefire talks with the United States.
Mohammad Eslami, who leads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, made the remarks to journalists including one from The Associated Press in Tehran, Iran, during commemorations for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“It is a part of the necessary (things) that nobody speaks about,” Eslami said, referring to the U.S. refusal to acknowledge enrichment as one part of Iran’s 10-point plan for a permanent ceasefire.
The U.S. and Iran are due to meet in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, for talks this weekend.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A tentative ceasefire in the Iran war staggered Thursday under the weight of Israel’s intense bombardment of Beirut, Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and uncertainty over whether negotiators can find common ground on a range of other differences.
Hours after the ceasefire was announced — amid disagreement over whether it included a pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, resulting in the deadliest day in the country since the war began on Feb. 28.
Iran and the U.S. — which both declared victory in the wake of the ceasefire announcement — appeared to try to pressure each other. Semiofficial news agencies in Iran suggested forces have mined the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world’s oil whose closure has proved Tehran’s greatest strategic advantage in the conflict. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned that U.S. forces would hit Iran even harder than before if it did not fulfill the agreement.
But what that agreement is remains in deep dispute. Beyond whether Lebanon is included, there are questions over what will happen to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, how and when normal traffic will resume through the strait, and what happens to Iran’s ability to launch missile attacks in the future.
At least 182 people were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday when Israel intensified its attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, which joined the war in support of Tehran. First responders searched overnight for missing people still under the rubble after the strikes, which hit commercial and residential areas of Beirut.
Israel said Thursday it killed Ali Yusuf Harshi, an aide to Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that an end to the war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump said it was not.
A New York-based think tank warned the deal “ hovers on the verge of collapse.”
“Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless,” the Soufan Center wrote in an analysis. “Israel’s strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Thursday that an Israeli strike overnight had killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military did not immediately acknowledge the strike.
Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart Thursday suggesting the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the strait during the war — a message that may be intended to pressure the U.S.
The chart, released by the ISNA news agency and Tasnim, showed a large circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the route ships take through the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil and natural gas once passed.
Only a trickle of ships have passed through the strait since the war began after a few were attacked and Iran threatened to hit any that it deemed connected to the U.S. or Israel. Ships appeared to continue to avoid the strait Wednesday, despite the ceasefire: Data from Kpler showed only four vessels with their trackers on passed through.
The chart suggested ships travel through waters closer to Iran’s mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed taking during the war. It was dated from Feb. 28 until April 9, and it was unclear if the Guard had cleared any mines since then.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told the BBC on Thursday that his country will allow ships to pass through the strait in accordance with “international norms and international law” once the United States ends its “aggression” in the Middle East and Israel stops attacking Lebanon.
The strait’s de facto closure has caused oil prices to skyrocket — raising, in turn, the cost of gasoline, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East. Oil prices fell on news of the ceasefire Wednesday, but began to climb as uncertainty over the deal grew.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around $98 Thursday — up about 35% since the war began.
Trump warned that U.S. warships and troops will remain around Iran “until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.”
If it is not, “then the ‘Shootin’ Starts,’ bigger, and better,” Trump wrote in a social media message.
The White House said that Vice President JD Vance would lead the U.S. delegation for talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war, which are set to start Saturday.
There appear to be many points of disagreement to address, including whether Iran will be allowed to formalize a system of charging ships to use the strait that it has instituted. That would upend decades of precedent treating it as an international waterway that was free to transit.
The fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — the elimination of which were major objectives for the U.S. and Israel in going to war — also remained unclear. The U.S. insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to build them, should it choose to pursue the bomb. Iran insists its program is peaceful.
Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. would work with Iran to remove the buried uranium, though Iran did not confirm that. In one version of the deal that Iran published, it said it would be allowed to continue enrichment.
Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong, Zeke Miller in Washington and Kareem Chehayeb and Hussein Malla in Beirut contributed to this report.
Government supporters walk past a billboard depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as they gather to mark the 40th day since the killing of his father, slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A sign for a roadside hotel is seen on Road 2 near Golhahr, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Government supporters gather to mark the 40th day since the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A rescue worker extinguishes burning cars at the site of an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises following several Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Ali, 4, holds a toy horse next to the tent his family uses as a shelter after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Government supporters gather ahead of the funeral procession for Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, head of intelligence for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
FILE - Two police officers walk in front of an anti-U.S. billboard depicting American aircraft being caught by Iranian armed forces in a fishing net beneath the words in Farsi, "The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground," in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
