It was the Diaz move I specifically called out regarding this. Yes, I got the argument for why we’d be open to moving him on. Once we decide we’re not going to extend him there becomes a question of what is the most beneficial way to get out of it…squeeze him dry for another 2 seasons and let him leave for free, having realized his value in performances on the pitch? Sell him now at the peak of his sell on value with 2 years still left? Or take an intermediate option keeping him for one more year to help navigate the first year of the Slotification of the squad at the cost of a lower fee next summer. For us to have taken option 2 in a summer when so much other change had already occurred felt to me like a move that was us being too clever. Too confident in our ability to always get it right, despite acknowledging that even a good transfer group will get about 50% of their moves wrong.
Add in that I was concerned about the impact on the dynamics of the group and the difficulty maintaining the culture of daily excellence with so much change, and it just felt like a move that did not pay enough attention to the downside risk of it going wrong. This is not hindsight as it is all stuff I said in the summer. I do think we are missing Diaz the player, but I think the thinking that produced the move is maybe representative of a broader degree of hubris, and losing sight of the things that previously built our success, is maybe what is biting us now.
Exactly, so how would you trust as a fan that Hughes will be able to find the right replacement now ?
This whole finger licking data model bollocks has been exposed badly if Slot departs !
So, do we change approach in finding the replacement or Hughes should also get the boot ? There is no smoke without fire and lots of things doing round that Hughes undermined Slot into selling Diaz.
I fail to understand how can a league winning team under the same manager with so much emotions can be like this…the whole team has downed tools…There is deffo something more to it than meets the .
It wasn’t. Talks to agree a deal started 3 or 4 weeks before. We probably should’ve had other targets in mind and moved onto them but it was a case of Guehi or no one.
Because he’s been one of the best #9s around the last few years.
Because he wanted to come.
Because many fans were under a spell that we were a top CF away from being unstoppable.
& probably because we overestimated just how long it’d take for him to regain fitness.
I’m guessing the club’s planned change after Jota’s passing, Darwin was always leaving so that leaves 2 spots open.
Well we were (wrongly) told it was because any Diaz replacement would’ve interferred with the development of Rio.
This is news to me. The 4231 accommodates him just fine, it’s the others around him that are failing whatever system this is, the last 2 games are a pretty good indicator.
I think you have to give Slot until at least the turn of the year. If we are stagnating or in freefall then something will need to be done. That said, someone coming in is going to have the same set of players available. If the problem is our squad make up, I.e. we’ve bought the wrong players for the type of game we want to play, or for the tough and tumble of the premiership, then qué sera sera.
But with this said, there is no way to remove Slot from this. A significant portion of the change was driven by his attitude towards players he had. The players we brought in to support that were all quality and for all the questions about how the decisions on personnel were made it’s very difficult to imagine this group having gone about things in a way that was not collaborative. For all the praise the data guys and transfer gurus have got over the years, everyone one of them has always been very quick to point out that it worked because of the human elements they ensured remained in their process.
Instead, what I see is a vision for what our football would be this year failed to translate from the brain of Slot into the actions of the players and everything is downstream from that. The poor performances from previously stellar players. The mental fragility that comes from feeling you are not being in a position to succeed by your boss, through some combination of not believing in the approach or not understanding what is being asked of you. The perceived lack of effort likely comes from the same place, because it isnt a conscious downing of tools, but more the effect of that inevitable momentary “of fucking course this would break down” thought you have when something goes wrong in a situation like this that just makes you that fraction slower to respond. And that is the difference between Cody defending properly on Forest’s second goal on the weekend and them scoring.
Yeah, people throw out the idea that we suddenly decided to pay what Palace were asking, but most reports actually have it the other way around…Palace knew for weeks what our valuation was and it took until the final day for Palace to signal they were willing to accept that, prompting us to only then formalize our move.
That doesnt change that after moving on Quansah, and the seeming willingness to let Gomez go, we surely should have been more forceful about adding a defender than playing a game of chicken with Palace that we were seemingly willing to lose and leave us with nothing. This just seems like a miscalculation of the needs.
The data model can help reduce costly mistakes, provided that it’s interpreted correctly and isn’t made the overriding factor in the decision-making process.
When it comes to Slot, it isn’t easy to blame Hughes. Slot interviewed well, no red flags came up, and the data supported his appointment. There were unknowns as to how he’d deal with a crisis, but at the end it was an educated guess and a calculated risk like every other transfer.
Unfortunately, it looks like Hughes got both this one and the summer signings wrong and ultimately that should weigh on his fortunes.
For me… If it continues like this until Christmas, then we should write the season off. Leave AS in charge until the end of the season to see where we are at then.
If he has lost the dressing room, the fans, and FSG are suffering a crisis of confidence in the guy at this point… then they will do what they think best. However, if we are out of contention in most things come the New Year apart from CL qualification 2026/27… Let us see if the guy can’t start getting some shoots of improvement without the weekly ‘pile-on’ pressure.
Yes we all had great expectations for this season, but hey-ho, shit happens… One thing is for certain though, it is likely AS will become a better manager for this humbling and sobering experience… whether we still want him, well, remains to be seen
We can debate the summer window ad nauseum. My perspective at the time was that this was a team that was in a midst of a multi-stage transition that would remake the entire club, and that it was necessary to build the next great Liverpool side. I wanted more CB depth, certainly - missing out on Guehi was a blow. Selling Diaz was not ideal as well, but understandable considering the fee, his persistent desire to leave, and the likelihood we’d sign Ekitike and Isak.
But it is what it is. Slot was given an extraordinary investment. And it was on him to have a plan to make it all work. And he has failed, to such a degree that even our experienced, title-winning players are massively underperforming.
This isn’t a question of depth, really. Sure, I’d love if we could drop Ibou for Guehi or have a LW not named Cody Gakpo who isn’t 17 years old.
This is our main 11 playing like shit. With no cohesion. No confidence. Making the same mistakes over and over and over and over again.
You’d think that Slot would, at the very least, make tactical adjustments to mitigate the same issues that have exposed us time and time again. But he hasn’t.
Why is that? There are two possible answers, in my view:
He doesn’t have a solution.
The players are incapable or unwilling to execute his solution.
If it’s the former, then there’s no reason to keep him.
If it’s the latter, then that falls on Slot to find a solution that they are capable of deploying. Even if it is a drastic change. Even if it involves dropping seemingly undroppable players.
These are all very good points actually, I would only agrgue that Isak not being up to speed yet isn’t relevant if the club saw him as one of the best strikers in the league and here for the long term. The problem now at this point is that all this almost becomes moot to a certain extent because right now we are where we are and we are sliding down the table towards the relegation area. I 100% agree with you that slot is not solely to blame for this fucking mess we are in. The question now is how the hell we get out of it? Unfortunately, I see absolutely no evidence on the pitch that he’s doing anything to turn our fortunes around. Last night against PSV was unacceptable as have been many other results. I have been one of those that have said we should stick with slot. He won us the league. He will turn it around. There are other mitigating circumstances etc etc. Now. I really just feel like a change has to be made not because I want it to be but because I cannot for the life of me see how he changes this situation now.
We signed one cb in Leoni and had another half way through the door until Palace pulled the plug at the last second. Sadly Leoni got injured, Konate is way off form, Van Dijk has now dropped to the level of mere mortal and not superhuman, and Gomez has a poor injury record and is apparently being kept back in case of an emergency, rather than being used as a rotation option. We are thus short and I’m sure we will address it.
In the meantime, we have to find a way to get a couple of results on the board, otherwise the momentum towards a Slot exit becomes almost unstoppable.
End of the day should that team out there be performing as bad as it is? No. That’s not Edwards or Hughes that’s down to the coaching and down to the players.
For me, results have to go with good performances, because we just don’t look like a good team. Not a top team, not a good team, but a really poor side with no structure or patterns of play, just relying on moments to bail us out.
We could beat West Ham and Sunderland, but if they’re smash and grabs, it’ll paper over the cracks. I’m really worried where we’re heading, and I can’t see it getting any better. I was calm until last night’s game, and the level of performance was one of the worst I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The number of times we let PSV players breeze past us and giving up, not even chasing back, was unforgivable from those who played.
When most of us watched the Fabinho scenario unravel in front of our very own eyes, even to seasoned supporters, it was hard to comprehend - Six months earlier, he was great… until he wasn’t.!
It makes me wonder are we seeing history repeat itself with some of our players now… Ibou - MacAllister - Salah - Virgil - Robertson - Jones, and from a continuing injury perspective, even Alisson.
These are/have been the backbone of our side for a number of years. Reliable, long in the tooth warhorses that have served us well - Seven months ago today, we won number 20, with them being very instrumental in getting us there.
Again, makes me wonder if we are at ‘a bridge too far’ in asking them to go again, a last ‘hurrah’ until a new team can emerge… New recruits have landed, the new guard of Anfield, but we seem to be reluctant to make hard decisions, or incapable to integrate them into what LFC expects from its players… Grit, determination, never say die attitude and all the other cliches that we could add…
If it wasn’t so painfully sad watching us fall apart on a game to game basis at the moment… It would certainly be an intriguing and exciting time watching how the old side, evolves into the new.
We can only guess at this point, but some madness has occurred, evidently, likely an off-ramp from winning the league at a canter, Jota’s loss, ‘generational’ talents being available, and I think we still miss Klopp, and the hole he left is an itch that cannot be scratched, where right now were back to square one in making the transition. In fact off the board at square -10. Losing Slot on top of this will be disastrous, but if he cannot steady it…then what else. We totally didnt expect a capitulation like this so everyone has been taken by surprise, after lots of earlier unforeseen events, for want of better words, it’s likely quite mad and drifting worse.
If I could go off one reason, someone has obviously gone out on a limb this summer with decision making and made a right royal fck up.
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