That’s a pretty dishonest take. Using points per game over a full season vs a season that’s 12 games in where we’ve started poorly (but in one we’ll likely recover).
Let’s play the dishonest stat game, but here’s a statistic that’s still a fucktonne more honest than yours:
Worst block of 12 games:
20/21- 4th Jan - 7th Mar: W=3, D=1, L=8, PPG=0.8, F=10, A=16, GD=-6
25/26: W=6, D=0, L=6, PPG=1.5, F=18, A=20, GD=-2
A slow motion kind of kitchen sink, though. It’s hardly harem scarem. Except when we end up defending, that is.
Imo one of our biggest problems is probably that Slot doesn’t know how to use his squad properly. He has 11 to 14 favorites, and he either doesn’t trust the rest, is resting them for emergencies, or they’re not match-fit, or a combination of all of these. As a result, players have to play in positions they weren’t intended for, and then they’re obviously missing from their regular positions, etc. We’re going in circles: overworked players get injured more easily, unused players aren’t match-fit and therefore aren’t used, etc. And then it starts all over again. And the depressing thing for me is that I don’t see any way out of this spiral right now. And unfortunately, there is no sign of a stable system in which all of this would work because many of his “sacred favorites” don’t even bring the basics to the pitch, or even have the freedom to simply ignore them. They know by now that they’ll always be playing anyway.
this is going nowhere.
lets just assume you can cherry pick a run of games that suits your fancy, and assume in someway Arne is on a level with Jurgen in the credit department, and ignore every other metric that puts Klopp ahead of Slot…
then what?..
its still unacceptable. the football isnt even the worst thing, its the effort, its the playing the same record over and over again and expecting a different tune…
i said a bit further up, i think the biggest issue (others like limie have mentioned this aswell) isnt whether we dig ourselves out of this, its how long its taken, if shit goes pear again next season, then thats a write off too, because hes needing months to sort things out, not weeks…
ignore the comparrisons to Jurgen, deal in the present, what is Slot giving us to cling onto at the moment…
whisper it as i know its sacrosanct, but we were shite well before we secured the title last season… its almost been a year now where we are a litte bit hard to watch…
gonna go there one more time too…going to Ibiza, getting pissed up on stage…not a great look now.
Comparing this season to 20/21 is odd. We aren’t playing in empty stadiums in the middle of a global pandemic. We aren’t running out Rhys Williams and Ozan Kabak at CB. There is no comparison.
Last year everyone was talking about how quickly slot can switch things in game, sometimes more than once in order to gain/gain back control. He doesn’t seem to be able to do that now.
Wasn’t JW Henry purportedly at Anfield yesterday???
It was also a season with a clear demarcation point of Matip going off injured against West Brom while winning 1-0 and top of the league at around the half way mark. With Virgil and Gomez already out for the season we became famously fucked at the back. We conceded a late equalizer in that game and we went on a rancid run of about 15 games while we figured out to compete with EFL level players having to play at the back for us.
I don’t get what is supposed to be dishonest about pointing out that we were good enough that year to be top at Christmas right before that happened, a significant amount of the season to make judgements on, despite having lost 2 of our 3 CBs and Thiago early in the season.
Last year the tweaks were often small, subtle enough it required a rewatch or the analysis of a tactico YouTube video to figure out what we’d done and the impact it had. This year the changes have been more “lol, what even is a midfield”
I wouldn’t object. However, the first person to even jokingly suggest Brendan Rodgers should get an immediate ban.
I have talked about the impact of the player turnover as well. But while some inconsistency is to be expected, this isn’t just instability. This is total collapse in form.
And you would think that any instability would fade by now. We’re nearly in December, and other than a blip against Villa and Madrid, things have gotten worse.
These are the upcoming league fixtures till the end of the year :
West Ham (A)
Sunderland (H)
Leeds (A)
Brighton (H)
Tottenham (A)
Wolves (H)
These are the upcoming UCL fixtures till the end of the year:
PSV (H)
Inter (A)
Arne Slot and his team needs to put in one of the craziest winning run in the league for us to secure UCL football next season.
As for the UCL, just not losing will see us get into the play-offs. Losing one would be bad, losing two will be quite close to dropping out of the play-offs stages.
Apologies if this has been mentioned in the posts after this as I’ve read them all yet but what you posted here sounds exactly like the transition from Kenny to Souness many years ago.
Souness has since stated that he regretted trying to change too much too soon.
For me last season showed a lot of the style that Klopp used with a few tweeks from Slot. The main, obvious difference being Grav slotting into that number 6 role. And for all the talk about Dom not getting the goal or assist figures expected from an attacking midfielder I’ve seen/read a few interviews where it was talked about how his role was also to help cover the right hand side as Salah wasn’t being asked to defend.
This season I feel we’ve dropped the style that Klopp had and after the summer signings I felt that we would be seeing the style of play that Slot wants.
Even many of those YouTube football channels where the people hosting them weren’t Liverpool fans had a similar idea of how we were going to set up - attacking full backs to give width (something I loved when Klopp had Robertson and Trent getting a silly amount of assists).
An energetic and hardworking midfield with Grav dropping deeper to almost make it three at the back if both full backs were up the field. And with the full backs giving us width then our forwards could act with a bit more freedom and come in off the sides - something that seemed suited to both Salah and Gakpo as they both love to cut inside and shoot.
However I honestly couldn’t tell you what we’re trying to do or how we’re trying to go about it this year. Under Rodgers we often showed up looking like a team that’s never played together yet when Klopp replaced him mid-season he was able to get a settled style of play going, even if it took a year or two to get the right personnel for his style to compete at the top level.
This season for me has sadly had us looking more like a Rodgers team instead of a Klopp team. Even when we were winning at the start of the season we weren’t playing well but the vast majority of us, myself included, had the thought that if we were winning whilst not playing well then just imagine what it’s going to be like when we do click and start playing good football.
The question at the minute isn’t when we’re going to click and start playing good football but how many people think that we look capable of doing it at all?
That was my thinking. I had expected us to drop points early on and then click. It seems to have gone in the opposite direction. Obviously, the injuries haven’t helped there, but they are clearly struggling to know what to do.
I don’t think it’s a personnel thing either. We clearly have a talented squad. To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, we have all the right players, just not necessarily in the right positions.
He says otherwise publicly, but he’s utilizing his squad as if he’s still managing in the Netherlands.
He seems dumbfounded that smaller clubs put up a fight and clueless as to how to get a grip on the situation.
Not really. I just find it more interesting to think about what might have gone wrong than just stamp my feet and demand he be sacked for ruining my weekend.
No, but as I’m now almost scared of saying such is the fucking pile on when you mention it, there have been different challenges the club is dealing with.
[quote=“Mascot, post:3209, topic:4281”]I
just find it more interesting to think about what might have gone wrong
[/quote]
Go on then what interesting thoughts have you got about our tactics and playing style?
Go on then what interesting thoughts have you got about our tactics and playing style?
[/quote]
There are lots of posts worth reading, from a variety of posters, buried in the deluge of anger. And thank goodness for that - this forum would be shite if all there was were posters venting that the manager should be sacked.
The forum reflects honesty though, and there are many supporters, far and wide who want Slot sacked.
There are comparisons to Klopps season as defending champions, there are analysts speculating on the effect of Jota’s tragic demise, there are people happy that the new signings have “failed”…and we have to respect the variances in opinion.
At the start of the season, even though we were wobbly, I thought “lets see it when we click”…I saw us as unstoppable. PL for sure with CL as a possibility. I thought Wirtz would find his place, Isak would be on a roll…Salah would be the monster from last season…none of it is happening. In truth, Szoboszlai aside, we have been “ordinary”.
Do we miss Trent so much?
Did Slot really only channel the remaining elements of Klopp last season?
Are we actually on a downward spiral since we were walking the league in the Spring?
The facts are, we are muck at the moment. I cannot see us beating West Ham, and thats a real worry. If this was any other club, we would be certain that the manager would be sacked. But we don’t see it as the Liverpool way. Well, the Liverpool way certainly isn’t losing six league matches and being on a negative goal difference in November. As reigning champions.
I have only one question…
At what point do we say enough is enough?
I’m around a long time supporting the Reds, through thick and thin and aside from Souness and Hodgson I never wanted a manager sacked. I knew Rodgers was on borrowed time. I loved Souness the player but my patience was tested by the manager…Hodgson was a bad choice at a bad time. We are at a better time in our history now. We surely have better players, more ambitious and fuck it, we ARE champions.
Slot needs to have a cohesive plan. It wasn’t evident yesterday. I felt at half time yesterday that we would lose the match. I hate the feeling but there’s an inevitability to it.
In my view, he gets the season. Rebuild underway.
However, in reality I think he gets sacked if we fail to beat West Ham.
Thats how stark it is.