And you can see evidence of that in how little clear cut they created despite such a poor performance from us. They scored 3 goals with a non-penalty xG of less than 1. Without the ball though City were excellent and that was the major factor in how different a dynamic there was in the two games.
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Our XG has been excellent throughout this run but apparently we are lethargic, boring and don’t create anything?
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I also thought City were much, much better than Madrid. They looked as dangerous as I’ve seen them, and I thought we were a little unfortunately that Doku decides to put together the performance he has been threatening for two years against us!
I don’t buy the idea that they were there for the taking. They looked quality.
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Ok so Man City are excellent… but we are worse than ever.
This all feels very clear and concise, I can see why we are moaning on a forum and not managing a football club now.
Doku’s gone up a level this season, so it wasn’t only yesterday. They were quality indeed. Good off the ball, better than us. With a day less of rest. And we gifted too much space, to Nunes, Haaland, Nico, etc. Even if the goal for 1-1 stood, I doubt we would’ve got something from the game. It just wasn’t our day. We were struggling to progress the ball from deep areas. And they were clever to drop Bernardo to a right sided double pivot zone in their build up phase, exactly where our press isn’t as good or it’s the least good.
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boxing fans the analogy is a bit like how Roy Jones Jr all of a sudden became really easy to hit when previously he had “a technique” that meant the best fighters in the world hadnt been able to lay a glove on him in years.
Until he came across Joe “the pride of Wales” Calzaghe…
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There’s a clear pattern forming now during Slot’s tenure of us being absolutely dreadful in first half’s away from home. You can criticise the effort from the players but ultimately I think it’s his responsibility to set them up properly in the first place, so often it feels like the opposition manager is one step ahead of him and he’s having to react constantly during the games. Last season it went pretty well for him in that regard, this season he’s really struggling to turn games around.
After yesterday’s game he was bemoaning the fact that City overloaded the middle of the pitch, and yet during the game he did very little to change that. Too often this season it feels like he’s getting caught between two stools at crucial stages in games and is getting punished every time.
It’s another big couple of weeks for him now during this international break. He couldn’t really ask for a better run of fixtures on the other side of it and I’m sure he’ll get us back to consistently winning games again.
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We made them look better because, unlike the midweek game, we never really challenged them.
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Now that is unpleasant. 
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Like Two Girls One Cup?
If he is asked about the game, and reflects that City overloaded the centre of the pitch, he isn’t ‘moaning’, he isn’t saying that City aren’t allowed to do that, or it’s unfair. He is just calling the game as he saw and providing the reaction that he is contractually obligated to provide.
This is what I mean when I say these things start to get person. When you are already all in on an opinion, it’s human nature to turn everything into a justification for that opinion.
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Right now, fixture lists don’t mean much to me.
We have to prove it game by game.
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Slot gets time for me, and he has my full backing (I’m sure that means the world to him, to have a random expat in Indiana in his corner ).
He won the Prem. That buys time, and the benefit of the doubt. I’m not blind, and there are some legitimate doubts right now, hence the discussion, but for me, Slot has earned the right to build his team.
So far it has not been smooth. Injuries with newbies - Isak and Frimpong, and getting others adjusted and up to speed - Wirtz especially, have given us issues. Kerkez has had a modest start too.
We also have the decline of Mo Salah to factor in. He’s not done, but neither should he be nailed on for 90 each time. We need more if we are playing with wingers.
My biggest concern is the lack of balance and a clear pattern of play. Several are saying it, that we seem caught between two stools, and it is thus underwhelming.
I think AFCON might be a turning point for us, as if we can get Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike in the same side and firing, we might kick on.
I can be patient, and while I’m disappointed it hasn’t been smoother, I’m also fascinated to see how Slot will solve it.
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What opinion am I all in on? Admittedly I’ve probably used the wrong choice of word there but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest it was intended as a personal attack on Slot. The point I was meaning to make was that as you said, he’s calling the game as he (and most of us) saw it, City were overloading the midfield. Gravenberch in particularly was getting swarmed, and yet despite seeing this in the second half nothing really changed from a tactical view point.
He really wasn’t, he was generally making very poor and very slow decisions. He ignored so many options each time and lingered so long on the ball he just always decided to turn and play back to Konaté. It was slow and laborious.
So often he received the ball with easy simple passes on hand yet decided to keep the ball advance until he’d cut his passing options off.
It’s this slow unintelligent stuff that’s killing us. To deliberately ignore 3 decent options in Mac, Szoboszlai and Salah to just pass back to the CBs for them to play an overweighted long ball to Salah is just not on in my book.
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LFC is a club that is traditionally very patient with their manager/head coach unless they have shown to be really out of their depth like Hodgson and Rodgers. Hodgson even managed to last 7 months despite not being FSG’s first choice and was only sacked for making LFC be in 18th place after 6 league games.
Slot will get to the end of the season if he is not relegating the club by christmas. Whether he gets his contract extension depends on LFC’s league standing by 24th May 2025 and/or if Liverpool will be playing in the UCL final on 30th May 2026.
Failure to get UCL qualification by 24th May or 30th May might be a sackable offence given the amount of investment being poured in for this season.
His form has certainly tailed off massively this season, it was disappointing how many duels he was losing, especially against the kind of midfielders they had. You’d have expected both he and Dom to have dominated physically but neither were really at it. His ability on the ball as you said was shown to be lacklustre again as well, that being said I’m still of the view we could have done more to help the three in there to cope better with the City overload.
I do have a little bit of sympathy for him as I think he’s both being asked to play a role that is naturally not his best position and isn’t as clearly defined as last season on top of barely ever being rested.
Even despite the slow start I’d still be amazed if we finished any lower than third.
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Wirtz was working his socks off to help the centre midfield if all had put in that effort perhaps we wouldn’t be concentrating on our short falls.
Concentrating on Gravenberch his best consistent period was when Slot arrived. At that point our press was decent and Gravenberch worked off what that spat off in terms of interceptions mainly. Then giving the ball upfield fairly rapidly.
None of our midfield are good tacklers so winning the ball is about reading the game (which we struggle with) and intercepting. Or herding an opponent with the ball where he doesn’t want to be blocking passing lanes waiting for an opportunity to gang up (we don’t do this at all).
I find it difficult to write about what I see as many just live in a different world it seems of heros and anti heros. ATM the number of our players I see loitering in space pointing after ‘letting’ an opponent past them is ludicrous. Major culprits are Szoboszlai, Gakpo and VVD. Yet two of those you can not criticise. Defensively Szoboszlai was at his best at RB where he shepherded his opponent and wrestled the ball away. When central upfield he doesn’t do this and is beaten far too easily.
Anyway that’s how I see it.
Mac lunges, Jones tries but can not slow the opponent down. They all need to learn how to shepard or we need to go back to a decent pressing system (both would be best like back in the Hendo days).
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That’s faith for you! 
Our squad is good enough.