It must be hard as a coach to try and get tactics set to play a team, when they turn up and play a completely different style to what has gone on before.
Saying that, it is also dissapointing that a lot if the time Arne hasn’t been able to get an inprovement at half time which used to be evident.
For me we need 2 playing styles, one a possession style and a 2nd to counter the long ball and fight for the corresponding 2nd ball and we need players/leaders that can get us to adapt/change mid game.
Lastly we need more players like Szob and Macca, when at his best, who want it more than the opposition.
Hopefully, this extra time on the training pitch will be sufficient.
We are in a crisis already. A man who won the league last year is facing questions about his job security. That is a not statement about whether I think that is fair, just an acknowledgment if what is, and that is the scale of the issue Slot is facing. To that point, it is far more a demonstration of a crisis that avoid an opportunity ti give the players they time they need to gel so you can protect them against the additional pressure that would come from losing another game. Once you start putting PR in front of taking the actions necessary to address the specific problem you have identified you are spiraling. That is essentially how the US and UK responded to the first wave of Covid.
Ordinarily I would buy the time off explanation, but it is incongruous with the statements Slot has been making. Ordinarily I would buy the “the time on the training ground is valuable” argument, but it is another demonstration of how bad things are that we think the addition of one more training sessions is required before the players are able to start working on whatever the plan is in a live situation.
I am actually quite frustrated that my mind has blanked on the other examples I have raised in the past, but it was on the weekend I was raising concerns that Slot has got into the territory of making statements that are difficult to reconcile with what he’d recently said and what he is doing. His approach to this game was another example of that.
With the unprecendented amount of money being poured into the team in one summer and possibly more in the winter window, I think getting a UCL spot comfortably in the league should be the barest of standards.
Is Slot in a midfield crisis? Not really.
Is Slot in a CB crisis? Maybe? Largely due to Leoni’s long term injury and Glasner pulling the plug on us. However, we haven’t explored fully the short and medium term usage of emergencies like Endo yet…
That is what I meant by noting a slight bit of difference.
Well no…We do have a set-piece coach. His name is Aaron Briggs who got his role shifted from first team individual development coach to Set-piece coach. How he got to be chief Set-piece coach is still a mystery…
Showing up and finding out that they are unexpectedly man marking your DM or something like that, then sure. But any high press side should be set up to deal with the sort of direct play we’re seeing this season because that is one of the expected outcomes you are trying to force them into. A high press side that cannot deal with that is a side that is only thinking about half the game. Its not much different than going out without a keeper and wondering why every shot on goal goes in.
I think Slot knows that if he has his big guns on the bench, he’ll end up getting drawn into the game and using them, and he doesn’t really want to.
As soon as you put them on the bench, that disrupts the training, as you have to gradient your players up to the match and then down the other side. If the justification for the selection (and I think it is) is that Slot wants his players spending the week working on the form, that is thrown in the bin if you put them on the bench for this.
If we are committing to the idea that the player are spending this week sorting their shit out, you might as well go all in. My only regret is that Slot had to be there.
Also remember we are quietly in the midst of a mini injury crisis with five first team players out injured, we can’t afford to lose anymore players to this tournament. Glasner made the decision to go all in with his first team last night. He is through to the next round, and can look forward to a quarter final away at Arsenal. On the down side, he lost Nketia to an injury. World I take the next round if it meant an injury to Szobozslai or Wirtz? Not on your life.
Palace didn’t go all in from the start, Nketiah is their backup striker. They changed around half of their starting team and had other seniors coming off the bench.
I think Slot is looking at this situation and thinking that the best chance he has got to beat Villa (who have no game midweek lets not forget) is to jib this and give his first team a week to clear their heads and work on the problems.
On the job security, I think you have to separate noise and hysteria from the actual strategy FSG are trying to implement. Fortunately FSG have a long standing track record of not giving a flying fuck about what fans think when it comes to footballing decisions. They’ll act when their internal metrics and analysis suggest a change is needed, not because of fans kicking off.
I’ve been watching football long enough to know that you don’t pay that much attention to what a manager says when he has a microphone shoved under his nose.
Regardless of where anyone comes down on the right way to treat this game, this piece is inarguably right. Once you’ve made the decision that you want to give the first team more productive time on the training ground to work through things rather than using the game to do it, then they have to skip the game entirely otherwise you are minimizing what you can do in that supposedly important additional training period.
I genuinely don’t get that. By the same token, surely you’ve been watching long enough then to know that managers can talk themselves into additional pressure by the way they speak about their team’s problems. Even just focusing on Liverpool alone - Rodgers claiming he doesnt have the tools? Hodgson saying we have to accept the level we’re playing at?
I don’t think we are in a full blown crisis yet but it is concerning enough for everyone from top to bottom to sit up and pay attention. Our recent league form resembles Fulham who is lying at 17th place.
The good thing is that there are 31 more league matches to go.By the 12th or 13th league game(we are on the 9th league game currently) which is close to the end of November, if there is no significant improvements in results and/or performance leading to us in the bottom half of the table, the board will probably call in Slot for a meeting and demand for answers.
I don’t disagree. I do wonder, though, if those players were served well by being at Anfield in the stands last night instead of either working at Kirkby or resting away from the stadium. Soaking in that kind of negativity in person might have done more harm than good. But I’m open to being persuaded here.
Slot did mention that Virgil and Ibou went to the locker room to console Nallo after he was sent off, so there was a benefit there.
Also, another disappointing thing about last night, was remaining in a 3 at the back shape when we were 2 goals down at home, while having a midfielder playing at CB. Chiesa chasing lost causes on his own. Great stuff. But oh yeah, we put 2 young CB’s off the bench, I assume to see if they would be of any use at this level, if a CB crisis appears.
Do I need to connect every dot? Cite every word that is relevant to the point?
You dont need a playing style for having the ball and a different one for long balls, because when you high press your style with the ball has to be aligned with your approach to defending. And that requires you are close enough to the ball when you lose it that you can put concerted pressure onto the ball to force them to play it where you want them to play it, which invariably results in them resorting to a long pressure-releasing ball that if you fail to win all of your prior good work is immediately undone
Yeah, totally. I try not to pay any attention to it.
Hodgson is his own thing. The Rodgers comment on having the tools, pretty much got him sacked - not because of the football analysis, but because it was a jibe at FSG.
Slot is at the point where he can’t saying anything without his detractors using it as evidence of his incompetence, and yet saying nothing is not an option.
I agree with this post in many respects. Slot’s press conferences have become increasingly difficult to stomach in light of the context surrounding them. But I also try to take these kinds of post-match pressers with a grain of salt because I don’t think it’s fair to expect a polished and totally unvarnished take. He’s going to save the most direct and honest criticism behind closed doors - directly to his players, his coaches, and as an explanation for his superiors.
So, while I generally listen to every presser, I try to withhold too much judgment until I see what is happening on the pitch during the next match. And that’s where I agree with you most concretely - the results don’t reflect that the necessary changes are being implemented and executed.
That is a total cop out. Its an argument that just shuts down discussion.
And saying you choose to pay no attention to the ways he has spoken in unsatisfactory ways doesnt change that other people are thus making it real. It’s like wathing a bank run and saying “if everyone acted rationally and choose to keep their money where it is there wouldnt be a problem.” We can acknowledge that is true in a world where everyone does what you think what they should do, but also have to live in the world where other people are not doing that.