Arne Slot - Head Coach (Part 1)

I love his attitude too but just not convinced he’s that good. The fact he seems a lovely person that wants to do well overshadows the fact he’s like a headless chicken most of the time on the pitch

That would be a sweet irony.

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Don’t forget the need to find the right man. It will need time. Until then, I reckon that Slot stays put.

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He isn’t Messi, but to be honest I haven’t seen enough if him to know how good he is. He plays 5 or 10 minutes here and there. Everytime he gets on he seems to do well, where as plenty of the lads do fuck all with minimal effort and still keep getting 70-90 minutes.

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He looks like a headless chicken because of the circumstances he faces every time he gets on the pitch. Always chasing a goal, always when it’s becoming desperate and never when there’s enough time for him to settle.

Case in point, Slot instead of putting Chiesa on for the horrific Gakpo and keeping Wirtz in the midfield, he brought Salah on and shifted Wirtz to the left. Salah did ok but Wirtz, who has been the best player in the last couple of matches, rather predictably couldn’t influence the game as much as he had in the first half.

Chiesa is too good to be treated like an emergency option; The way that Slot has misused him is negligent.

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Of course, I agree with you. But if they aren’t currently working on finding someone more suitable to help us out of this mess, that would be completely negligent.

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Another post thread, this time after the Sunderland game, has once again got a lot of rage from the forumites, which is not so subtly interwoven amongst the comments or against each other.

For me, this stems not just from us playing crap recently, but the fact, the position of AS as an elite tactical coach and good man manager, has been rightly so, brought into question, and it is a realisation, that is making us all very nervy.

From the moment Jurgen said he was taking his lovable gurning expressions, his above average intelligence and a mesmerising personality that had us all at the ready to push the train, since his ‘normal one’ interview, was moving onto pastures new. Once he was gone, as fans, we all became worried for what lies ahead and how we could maintain our position of dining at the top tables of Europe.

Anxiety levels at the time could be forgiven if they were soaring through the roof space. Anxiety levels which over many months, slowly, but surely, returned to normal readings when it became obvious we were going to be PL Champions once again for the 20th time. It looked as though the club had achieved the nigh impossible task of replacing the winning ways that Jurgen achieved with/for us.

For what it is worth… I think our anxiety levels are soaring again at this juncture. I think the team collectively, players individually, are looking for a leader… when they are on the pitch, and times when they are off the pitch. When a player/s head drops for whatever reason, they need to know when they look up for instruction, simple guidance or a shoulder to lean against, they realise they are in safe hands when they view AS.

For me, AS needs to get command of every aspect of his role, and sooner rather than later would suffice. He needs to instil confidence in squad, never mind the whole of the fanbase also, but talking shit to the press about the players is not going to do it, neither is dancing Gangum style or miming to Agadoo next to Wayne Lineker in Ibiza.

With the job of coaching LFC, comes big rewards for big responsibility… Hopefully no-one in the LFC hierarchy suffers from ‘hair-trigger’ syndrome, and we, and Arne Slot, at least get to the end of the season before a full review is undertaken.
For all we know, we might win the CL yet :0)

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This came from my mate hard to disagree.

When anfield becomes a playground for teams like Forest, Psv and Sunderland then it’s gone past fixing imo Apart from covid season which I don’t count how many games did Klopp lose at home? We’ve become a soft touch and that’s hardest part to accept.

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I think that depends on how the internal staff see what the underlying issues are and what can be done to address them…and whether they feel any responsibility towards this situation because of their involvement in changes over the summer.

Part of the problem Arne has is that there are so many issues affecting the team right now that it is somewhat difficult to deal with them all at once or perhaps concentrate on the key one or two issues as much as it is needed - and may be many of them are connected. For example, is our slow build up a factor because we worry about losing it and not being able to press effectively?

The upcoming transfer window may help somewhat with that if we can bring in the right targets.

For example, bringing in someone like Semenyo may give us someone who could play on the left and provide more join up on that flank (particularly with him having played with Kerkez before) than Gakpo appears to be doing at the moment, and give us the pressing/ graft that we relied on Diaz for up front.

Guehi’s passing is also something we would benefit from in trying to progress the ball, and doing so more quickly, if we were able to bring him in, or perhaps give us the option of switching to three at the back at times so our wingbacks can play further forward more easily and get an extra body into the central areas.

I don’t know if there are any midfielders available we would want to bring in but Harvey Elliot’s return may provide us with a bit of that raw energy, doggedness and directness we sometimes lack.

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If you don’t laugh, you’ll weep.

But some want you to believe we’re “heading in the right direction”, it’s disturbing.

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It just shows how incredibly low we’ve fallen. I get that it’s a reconstruction phase, but these are not the kind of teams you should be losing 3-0 and 4-1 to at Anfield. That simply shouldn’t happen.
This is not a transition issue but it feels like standards issue.

Still really hope Slot has the answers, but right now I just can’t see it. It’s a perfect storm, cb defending with his ass, the other one playing like a donkey, Salah clearly on the decline. This is not helping the new players settle.

And I can’t agree with abandoning the relentless pressing identity we had under Diaz, Mane or Firmino. That intensity was our backbone.

Saving a draw at Anfield vs Sunderland IS an improvement.
Our attacking plan is so basic. It’s basically ‘hope for the best.’ It genuinely feels like nothing is being drilled into the players.

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Our attempted press last night, another nicely coached sequence. Gakpo and Szoboslai somewhere in the full back positions.

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But would changing in games directly after Real and West Ham also be called random changing (as you call his subs), though?

I don’t see an issue in trying to keep positive aspects of certain wins or performances, but we’ve struggled to go on at least a solid run of games.

We’ve only played 9 EPL games this season?

I thought we’d played more…

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We didn’t start with two wingers in the last two games, it was one for another (like you say) and an extra attacking midfielder playing more inside. Wirtz will still get games off the sides towards inside, now we’ve had to protect Gomez at RB with Szobo a bit wider.

We’d all like to find the winning formula (like last season he found it in attack with Salah, Gakpo and Diaz) as soon as possible, but I’m afraid we haven’t yet and it will take more than a win or two to “fully” implement it.

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Remember Jürgen mentioning to Sadio that he will build a team nobody wants to play against?

This ain’t that team any more.

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We have to make decisions sometimes, does Liverpool exist to compete and win or to worry about what the outside world thinks if we’re a sacking club or not?

We had 22 managers/head coaches in our history, even if in modern times things change in football much more than way in the past.

Potentially sacking Slot will not suddenly mean we’re “Chelsea”. I totally disagree with Carra holding onto the fact that we’ve never sacked a title winning manager. So what, we should keep that tradition by default? We have to make decisions when we are sure it’s the right thing to do.

The club is already in the phase of showing patience, but it might have it’s limit this season.

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Yup. We were wayyy too soft against Forest. Only Milos got stuck in when he could.

Tactics is a huge issue.

But mentality and a complete absence of bloody-mindedness is just as big an issue.

I’m sure Wirtz didn’t get the instruction to go wide left and hug the touchline at HT and then suddenly allowed to leave that zone, come inside to combine. Same goes for Szobo, who has started inside right in the last two games because of Gomez at RB.

When Wirtz is used off the sides, in possession, it’s mostly with the same mission to end up in similar zones. Whether that or our collective game works, depends on us and also the opposition.

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PSG were nowhere near as bad in these stages as we’ve been so far this season.

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