Arne Slot - Head Coach (Part 1)

The Albert
5867

For some reason this comment instantly brought

“You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off” to mind :joy:.

I think your post is pretty spot on. I’m sure some one of our players - I think it was Curtis - referred to Slot wanting to play the percentages, what I mean is basically Risk v Reward. Unfortunately, when confidence is low, you play the safer option. I get it, especially at home when there is more pressure on them.

As you said, we should have won against Burnley but when your missing pens and when your inform and confident striker (this is not a slight on Ekitike) is Mm’s away from adjusting his feet to prod home from a couple of yrds, you kind of know it’s not your day.

It is frustrating really as I am seeing things starting to progress. Wirtz is finding his groove but players are still not reading his game. There was a moment in one of our recent games where Wirtz was in the area, dragged the full back in enough to lay the ball for an on coming Kerkez on the overlap. Kerkez never read it though and it went out for a goal kick, no ones fault just not understanding each others game.

I am looking forward to Mo coming back, I hope the break from the squad/being in a happier environment puts a spring in his step. Also the Virg to Salah diagonal is so good at putting us on the front foot, and usually one on one.
However, what ever happens we cannot start games with both Gapko and Salah as our wide men. Their style of play just makes us narrower and easy to close off.

Hopefully, the restarting of the Champs league and with it a different style of opponent gives us a chance to play without pressure and find our Mojo, on paper the home game to Qarabag looks ideal but we can’t count on it.

For information purposes/context.

This season after 22 games we have 36 points.
Last season we had 51, one more point than Arsenal have now.
After Klopp’s title winning campaign we were on 40 points after 22 games.
22/23 we had 33 points.
So in the 22/23 season, Klopps team had less points than at the same stage as this season. I don’t remember Klopp getting this much shit.

I personally think he is gone in the Summer - too much noise.

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5868

This was one thing that actually annoyed me on Saturday, because leading up to the equaliser we played it around our own box under pressure. Surely in those circumstances, it makes sense to hoof it up field and allow the team to regain their shape. As it was, they fannied about with it until we lost possession and then remained on the back foot until they scored.

I think he did from some quarters, particularly after it went to bits in the season after the title win.

Possibly the difference is that we saw Klopp pulling it back together after a poor spell. So far with Slot, we have only seen him go from dreadful to mediocre.

I’m not a fan of ditching the head coach at the first sign of problems, because I think the position has to align with the whole football plan, from direction, through recruitment, and the entire coaching set-up.

There’s a lot of people wanting Alonso in immediately, but I can guarantee that many of them would be demanding his sacking by the summer if things didn’t go well.

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5869

And the fact that the only CBs he had were Phillips and Williams.

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5870

And the fact that he was probably part of the decision not to sign a CB in that summer of 2020 while selling Lovren and going into the season with 3 CB’s.

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5871

The availability of Alonso really changes the situation, but nobody should be under any illusions that it’s a magic solution. Changing the manager/head coach is the easiest thing to do, but there are people above and below Slot in the chain of command who have questions to answer in relation to this season - people on and off the pitch who haven’t delivered.

The decision to sack a manager who has won the league shouldn’t be taken lightly. I would hope that Alonso would want the job, but there is no guarantee he would. And even though I would hope we’d be getting the exciting young coach who guided Leverkusen to an unbeaten season rather than the win who looked fucked by his experience of Madrid, there is no guarantee he would be any better.

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5872

David Lynch on Arne Slot:

“They clearly, clearly want to get to the end of the season with Slot if they can. They don’t want to make a mid-season managerial change because who do you get as the interim? It would clearly be better to make the managerial change in the summer."

“I think his future’s already set, to be honest. It’s been so pronounced, the decline, for such a long time. It is only a case of getting to the summer, albeit if he starts to lose six, seven on the bounce again, he will get bulleted because they’ll feel forced to go for an interim. They don’t want to change; they really would prefer not to."

“Then it’s kind of go for a manager then in the summer. People are talking about ‘go and get Xabi Alonso’, but he’s not gonna want to walk into a job now, so it’d have to be an interim, and I don’t think there’s a great deal out there.”

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5873

It does seem obvious that unless there’s a massive turnaround, Slot will be gone in a few months.

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5874

I’m not sure that Lynch is demonstrating any particular insight here. We know FSG don’t usually pull the trigger on a manager until they feel they have to/ have everything else lined up.

Still depends on what the club see as the driving factors for these performances.

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5875

Also David Lynch…

Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there’s humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd. But I don’t just find humor in unhappiness – I find it extremely heroic the way people forge on despite the despair they often feel.

Current LFC to a tee…

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5876

The point was they weren’t. And I said they were. Regardless for the reasons why.

And they didn’t gegenpress that was used a bit when he first came in but they evolved over time.

Is the plodding a symptom though or the cause?

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5877

absolutely nothing wrong with the team that faced Burnley.

its a cracking squad. we are short at CB, but thats only if we get an injury, Slot hasnt rotated out KOnate when he had a chance, and VVD and Konate are both playing everygame.

we look thin at the back, but thats us fearing an injury, you could say it hasnt impacted him yet.

at left fullback we are fine, right full back up until 2 games ago we were fine, and we now have JG and Frimpong there…

midfield is world class.

lack of depth on the wings might be an issue, but not against the likes of Burnley.

i dont buy into the incomplete squad line… its not perfect, but, its still more than more than good enough.

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5878

i dont think anyone thinks its a magic solution.

im particularily worried that whoever does come in, or if Slot gets another at least one season, the impending retirement(at our club) of Salah, VVD, Robbo, Allison and leaving of the likes of Konate and Macca…

we could possibly see another summer like the last in terms of numbers (maybe not the dollar value)

we are in for at least another season of upheaval, if not next season, the one after it at the least.

we need a team with an identity…not a team that just wins games becuase we figured out how to put the current peices together…

all feels very very ominous.

5879

I’d love to see how our decision makers imagined all this in offices on their white boards, before then working with it on pitches.

Because I still have no idea, only some guesses after seeing some first friendlies in pre-season, etc. But the picture is incomplete, a number of questions remain. Hopefully we solve some this season, some will remain going into next. Regardless who is in charge.

And yes, the result on the pitch hasn’t been great.

This squad should remain a CL one next season, but we’ll see, we’ll have to merit that. Football doesn’t care who’s coming from a better position and who had what sort of expectations not long ago.

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5880

The problem with a managerial change this summer is that the World Cup is going to mean a shortened pre season for the majority of our squad, likely 3-4 weeks max. You could argue it would make more sense to get Alonso if possible asap so he has a sufficient amount of time to work with the entire squad.

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5881

It seems the hierarchy never considered a collapse like this so they are all like rabbits in the headlights.

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5882

Our next 3 fixtures are Bournemouth, Newcastle and City. Anything less than 5 points He is gone.

We would likely sit 6/7th in the league, the risk of losing £40-£60M of CL money will weigh heavily.

If United beat Arsenal, and sit above us, their bounce (having just beat city) will mean they have a momentum that will be very concerning to the odds of CL football.

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5883

With Sunderland and Forest after, both away. Tough schedule which includes 2 CL games and an FA cup tie.
I think you’re right, this run will make or break him.

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5884

Watching Bournemouth right now. That’s the first worry…..

5885

Timed that well.

5886

Brighton score a deserved goal a magnificent bike.

Bournemouth are so boring.

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