There is nothing that would convince me he should be staying, this is getting worse, there is no plan or idea. He will be in the relegation zone by Christmas if he stays next season.
I don’t think the club is 3-4 managers away as the league isn’t the dominance it once was and I don’t see anyone coming through who will dominate like Man City and us did. However the longer you leave it the harder it gets to recruit.
As I said I can understand why they would give him the CL, there is even an argument for the season. But unless we suddenly turn out performances of quality these last few weeks of the season hes a goner, I don’t expect the club to risk that much loss in finance. They could also easily end up with no European football.
I would have probably said they may have kept him from what was being put out but there seems a change of tone from the local journos since the Man City game, there was a few articles with 16 days to change the season. Since then we’ve lost two with no goals scored. If he was to come back against PSG then perhaps but they’ve played ok for 40 minutes of the last 3 games.
He has one year left on his contract. You absolutely cannot offer him a new one currently but you also don’t want that kind of uncertainty floating around during the summer or into next season.
If there’s a time to cut your losses it’s this summer.
I think Edwards and FSG will make the call, I actually don’t think Hughes will be here post this summer and I am generally ok with most of what he has done.
The most interesting bit is not even Slot, but the little part about Hughes and Edwards (which is also connected to Slot’s position if there is movement soon).
Quote:
“Slot has a contract until the end of next season, and the club are of a mind to persevere into the last season of that deal before making any decision on a renewal or otherwise. Both Hughes and Edwards – sporting director and FSG’s football chief executive respectively – have fixed-term deals that end at the same time. Both planned to stay for the contracted three years and no longer.”
Where the fan base is with him needs to considered by FSG. It’s gone too far, and even if they are willing to treat this season as an aberration and reset, it’s fanciful to think fans will do the same.
He could start the season with ten on the spin, but the first loss would have all the knives out again.
Yeah but everyone knows that’s a pretty weak argument.
Rafa took an average squad, and won the CL. Massively over performing. His tactical genius was a core part of the success.
Slots biggest challenge was maintaining the levels Klopp set (filling his shoes, which were massive shoes to fill). Our league performance mirrored the season before. He did a good job but was also fortunate that City and Arsenal had poor seasons and we could win the league with lowest total since Leicester.
Taking a squad that had won every trophy going and winning the league.. you don’t need to be elite coaching. It’s similar to Di Matteo winning the CL, or Blanc at PSG or Vilanova at Barca inheriting top squads and continuing momentum.
For me there is no equivalence to winning the CL with likes of Biscan, Traoré, Mellor, Pongolle and Baros playing key roles.
He inherited a team on the slide that fans had lost faith in (that’s generally why managers get the sack), added a couple of key players, lost or moved on a collection of players who had been key for Houllier, and converted Carra to CB turning him from an at risk FB to a club legend in the making. A very abrupt and clear line in the sand was drawn marking that team as Rafa’s that no one at the time questioned.
Comparisons to the continuity between 23-24 and 24-25 just dont remotely stand up.
I’ll have no bad thoughts about him if he was to go in the summer. I will be more angry with FSG if they think it will improve if the season fizzles out. I’d love to see a load of performances til the end of the season and prove me completely wrong but its not getting better and you can buy a whole new team.
Slot does deserve credit for walking into the club last year and having the humility not to make too many changes and, instead, making more minor tactical adjustments designed to make our play more sustainable for the entire season. There are many other managers who would have come in and tried to rip up what we were doing before simply because of their own egos.
20 managers we could have appointed were not winning the league last season. And at no point last May was anyone suggesting so. And nor did Klopp win it with that squad the year before.
Lot of revisionism going on now to play down the achievements of last season.
For a start our second loss in the league came in April. That’s a hell of a long time to ride the wave of the previous manager if he wasn’t really up to the job.
And he oversaw us winning the CL league phase. Won all the games until the final dead rubber. Only lost to the eventual winners on penalties. And made it to the league cup final too. 20 managers also doing that first season at a new club?
When it comes to individuals, he took a player Klopp had previously seemed to be unconvinced by, slotted him into one of the troublesome spots in the team and watched as he won PL young player of the season. Oh and Salah broke the record for G/A in a single season, won PL of the season, PFA Player of the season and FWA Player of the season.
It probably goes down as one of the top five, if not top three seasons for the club in the last 35 years. To say 20 other managers could have done that is just disingenuous, especially as the team he inherited finished third the season before and failed to get past the last 16 of the Europa League. They were good but not even the best squad Klopp had assembled.
5 home games between now and the end of the season. Discontent is rife throughout the fanbase. Protests already arranged against the rise in ticket prices.
The potential for things to get really toxic is high. If FSG have already decided he’s staying and they’ve told him as much they might end up really regretting it.
