And yet you keep coming back?
Its a bit toxic at the moment, I’ll give you that…but if its as bad as you alluded to earlier, then you won’t ever return.
See you in a few days or weeks.
Miss you
Yeah truth be told I actually came back to see what the situation in Ukraine was like, then I read about the ongoing genocides (shoutout to @Magnus for keeping us informed, the main reason I come back really), then the masochist in me thought I might skim the football threads.
I say “thought”, but it was a feeling, a whim, one which I wonder why I indulged. I gotta say though, I was too curious about the munt cuppets.
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“I live by the mantra: if you don’t have something kind or constructive to say, it’s better to say nothing at all.” In regards to Slot, I made up my mind months ago. But will continue to support team and Him as long as he stays in charge.
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Tactically, as with his many half-time tweaks last season that got us over the line, I think AS must be quite astute with his knowledge of the game.
That said, I am hoping he is also astute with his motivational, man-management skills…
Looking at the team sheet for the Villa game, I’m confused with Wirtz being side-lined again for a game we really need to take all 3points from… We do have RM in midweek which might be a major factor though. Anyway, will be interesting to see how the forthcoming weeks pan out regarding the team selections, and just hope, the confidence and self-belief Wirtz had when he arrived, isn’t being slowly eroded
What a différence 90 minutes make, eh? 
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Not perfect but better from us. Defended with determination at the end however at 2-0 a couple of times we shouldn’t have overcommit.
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I think most of us would be very satisfied with that!
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What when he’d just won the PL at the first time of asking?
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But it’s with Klopp’s team. Any Muppet could do that.
Who you calling a muppet?
I was actually thinking that, only when it comes to our first line of pressing (at 0:0), when a properly placed pass would take out 3-5 of our players and start a dangerous attack, that’s what worried me a lot last night. We’ve been seeing that for a while, as well as Mac Allister getting easily bypassed in our half near the half-way line.
I said a few weeks back that I hoped Slot would take a step back, try playing with nine starters from the last season + Wirtz and Ekitike/Isak and try to play the side into form that way, help all the new guys get accustomed to the league. What we saw last night was closest to that but it will take a lot more improvement for us to be competitive again. I’m really not looking forward to the next couple of games.
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Glad to see that his midweek gamble paid off somewhat, although the real tests are up ahead. Still, a much more cohesive and energetic showing. They clearly put the work in during the week.
That said, it was kind of jarring to see that Slot reverted to last season’s blueprint. It demonstrated beyond doubt that there’s no way for him to get the best out of Wirtz at least for now. And it’s no surprise, as Wirtz’s role is inexistent within this setup, unless he starts rotating with Gakpo, which would be a waste. The same applies to Isak as well with the caveat that in his case, he really doesn’t deserve to start over Ekitike.
I wonder what the plan during the summer was, because none of this is news either to Slot or to the recruiting team. Maybe, there are more changes coming that will alter fundamentally the way we play.
The one thing that seems certain is that there is no way long term that we’ll keep fielding lineups missing two of the most expensive signings the club has ever made.
I don’t tend to agree, Hugo drifted over at times so could easily rotate that side with Isak. I don’t think that’s a massive issue.
Wirtz came on and was involved in attacks and was pretty central so again it’s a system that can be used. The concerns are really Kerkez and Frimpong.
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I was assuming that they would be deployed as wing backs. I’m wondered if trying to sign two central defenders, one of which fell through and the other out for the season, has had a knock on effect to the rest of the blueprint?
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That team finished 3rd and 5th in the two years previous. Deserves more credit than he gets for taking it to a title win.
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If this turns out to be true, then we’re talking about a serious lack of alignment between sporting director, player recruitment and head coach. I dearly hope it’s not the case. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe for one second that there’s not a clear-cut role for Wirtz and that is should be behind the striker but I also believe it’s up to him to get up to speed with the league and make it his own - with Slot’s help, obviously. He lacks strength but he doesn’t lack application, that much I can tell.
I was convinced Frimpong would flop and he hasn’t shown anything to change my mind. Now he’s getting injured on top of that. Kerkez, on the other hand, has disappointed me very much. I expected him to hit the ground running because he had already taken to PL like a duck to water. His performances for Liverpool have been wildly inconsistent and he’s looked closer to Moreno than to Robertson. I do hope he will come good sooner rather than later but to go from Trent and Robbo of 2022 via Trent and Robbo of 2024/25 to Frimpong and Kerkez is quite alarming.
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Why did you think Frimpong would flop?
Whenever I saw him play for Leverkusen and Netherlands, he played as a very attack-minded wing back and didn’t look like someone who was comfortable with handling 1-on-1 defending. We already had one such right back, albeit an astounding creator and passer of the ball, who was fully accustomed to playing in the league. I said at the time that I believed that the main reason behind his transfer was his homegrown status - I still stand by that.
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I might give him more than 3 months, which he has been injured or returning from injury for.
Kerkez is struggling but he was the best left back in the PL last season so let’s see with him. A lot of people seem to pretend that some werent saying they were willing to drive Dom to the nearest airport, same with Grav. Gakpo is currently getting it and yet he will have periods of quality where he becomes unstoppable, Diaz is apparently the greatest of all time but again he had periods of struggle.
We do seem very flexible with the YNWA.
Least you’ve stuck to your guns on Frimpong, I hope you are completely wrong.
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It is very unlikely to be. It is more believable to me that however we imagined this coming together simply hasn’t worked. Yet.
How much that might be related to the loss of Leoni (I doubt) or the failure to land Guehi (maybe but I’d hope we wouldn’t leave something so pivotal so late) is questionable
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