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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This is what I’m talking about. That’d be Szoboszlai’s role, who provides incessant running and pressing. Wirtz obviously can’t play like him, which forces Slot to modify the formation, tactics and the rest of the lineup, which in turn makes the team dysfunctional.
I don’t see a way for him to play behind the striker in yesterday’s system.
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I should have added this to my previous post: I believe that Szoboszlai can play well in a more withdrawn role, i.e. next to Gravenberch, providing that running and energy from deeper role, while Wirtz gets more freedom in those pockets of space behind the striker.
At least, this is what I hope for… Otherwise, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner.
The fact that Kerkez was in the team of the year doesn’t assure me thinking long term. That doesn’t mean much, he’s at Liverpool now. New context, new season. Pascal Chimbonda (and similar random players) was in the team of the year once if I remember correctly (he’s the first random full back I could think of), so what? I was skeptical about our choices at full back this summer and I still am, even more so actually. But of course, I’m as open minded as one could be to see how this evolves.
Trust me, there isn’t a person in the world who wants to be proven wrong when they are predicting doom as much as I do…
Maybe Klopp’s era skewed my expectations so significantly that every winger has to be compared to Mane, every left back to prime Robbo etc. I just don’t remember any Liverpool signing struggling early with form and injuries and turning out to be a really good one eventually. Robbo and Fabinho weren’t setting the world alight when they first joined but they didn’t have injury issues and their worst wasn’t this bad.
I’m not giving up on anyone but they would have to break that tradition in order to become very good Liverpool players. I don’t think there’s a rival fan looking at our summer business without laughing their hearts out. One thing these new signings have over Robbo and Fabinho is that they joined under the pressure of performing for defending champions. That should cut them a bit more slack.
The problem isn’t that Szoboszlai can’t play elsewhere; he’s versatile enough. The problem is that playing him as an 8 or even as RB, causes other issues.
Either the midfield press gets weaker with Wirtz’s inclusion, or we are missing Szoboszlai’s influence if he’s playing as RB. There’s no answer, unless we change formation, which would raise questions about Salah.
That’s why Im hypothesizing that the summer transfers were the beginning implementation of a wider plan about post Salah Liverpool. Or we’ve bought Wirtz without having a real plan, which means that we’ve turned into Man Utd. Who knows.
Wirtz can also play off either sides, coming inside as a double #10, as he did against Frankfurt. I’d like us to try that box shape midfield structure a bit more.
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