Football doesn't remember - that's the lesson Arne Slot learned the hard way. The coach who brought Liverpool the Premier League title last year got the sack this year after a season with as many as 20 losses. From champion to fired, in less than twelve months.

A drop from first to fifth place is dramatic for a club with Liverpool's ambitions. Twenty losses in a single season is a figure no top team can afford - least of all a team that lifted the trophy over its head the previous year. The fans' disappointment and the pressure from the board made the sacking almost inevitable.

Slot became a victim of his own success. When you bring a title, expectations become the standard, not the exception. Every following season has to be at least as good - otherwise the fall looks all the more dramatic next to the previous peak. He was expected to repeat, and instead came a collapse.

This is the brutal reality of modern football. Loyalty to a coach who brought success lasts exactly as long as the results. In a sport where only the trophies and the points are measured, memory is short, and patience shorter still. Slot learned the lesson many before him learned: in football, what you did yesterday rarely saves you today.