Arne said “we hardly conceded a chance yet conceded three goals.” Sorry mate, but conceding three goals on the reg is not good enough.
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Towards the end of Jurgen’s spell with us Mo started the season poorly when he was made to play wider. Things only recovered when brought inside.
Why would he be expected to play wide again, particularly if you know he has even less in the tank to cover defensively than he did forst time round?
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Cannot really see Slot turning this ship around and us going back to winning ways under his stewardship. It doesn’t mean he’s the only culprit but unfortunately for him it’s the only viable option in December. Changing Edwards/Hughes or buying new players en masse instead will not solve things immediately
We need to change managers and hope whoever comes in at least have us ending the season in top five.
Could Iraola be an option? Edward/Hughes know him from Bournemouth, don’t they? With Semeyo and Guehi incoming January we should be able to obtain CL footie next season.
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Another name to check on…Adam Lallana…isn’t he an assistant at Southampton.
The start of 23/24. Salah struggled to influence the game out wide. Trent played as the 10 at times. One of Ljinders’ many genius ideas no doubt.
Typically, a player who loses their pace finds it easier coming more centrally. When you see Salah, or even Wirtz, isolated out wide you know they’re going to struggle a bit.
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I was wondering if Milner was doing his coaching badges 
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I’ve seen this ‘uneven squad’ thing a number of times and I don’t get it. In what way is it uneven?
I’d say it was well balanced insofar as we can’t defend (in open play and set-pieces), have a mis-firing attack to the point the best ball our CF gets is from an opposition player and the midfield doesn’t create, can’t protect the defence and can have a fucking bus driven through it regularly.
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I find it bollocks yes there are certain areas that are less supplied than others but look at the team and know the potential they can play. I noted there is nothing wrong as every week it’s a team that should be winning or at least be unlucky not to win.
It certainly shouldn’t be a team that coasting at 2-0 makes a brain fart shits the bed, somehow covers it up again and then shits on top of the covers.
We are not talking about the last time things were this bad when he was playing CM at CB for entire games and finding a couple of guys from the reserves to lead the backline.
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Can also we leave picking sides both Slot and Salah need to go to be honest.
Talking heads from the Wrap and the like can continue to make fantasies in their head the only reason they are out there is because they talk shit that should be laughed at.
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Said this about 3 or 4 times now, we’ve conceded 24 goals all season which puts us as the joint worst with 2 other teams in the top 15, but yeah, we don’t concede chances. He bemoans this unholy idea that any chance we give up leads directly to a goal, it’s complete nonsense.
Go and watch back the fucking Palace game and tell me we didn’t deserve to be 5-0 down at HT. Absolutely clueless.
He doesn’t make any sense, then again given the pressure he’s under sometimes causes you speak irrationally.
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This just is not true. Look at Slot’s comments after the Atletico game where he commented on it being far more the Mo we want to see with him involved in the areas (the half spaces and closer to goal) we want him rather than stuck out on the wing. We can maybe criticize the coaching if these dynamics are not working and he’s getting stuck out on the wing, but that is clearly not something happening by design or instruction.
I have raised numerous criticisms of Slot this season, but it’s important when evaluating Mo how often he has still found himself in positions where he could do something positive and responded appallingly. Bad touches and looking like he has lead in his boots do not come from bad coaching. Not directly at least. You can go back to even the first game against Bournemouth where on 3 separate occasions we worked the ball to him in what is prime Mo goal scoring position and he was so slow, and so clumsy in his touch that each time he failed to even get off a shot.
If we want to raise questions about how well Slot is setting them up to succeed then that is fair. But that is a macro issue that we could use to explain Mo’s lack of form if it meant he was just not involved in the game. But he has been and has just used the ball really poorly when the situation has been created that Mo of old would have made something from. And maybe the micro is affected because of the macro, but one of the characteristics of top athletes is they dont allow room for excuses. If Mo is going to point to the overall collection of problems as a reason that he has so often spurned good opportunities by either losing the ball meekly or skying a shot hopelessly high and wide, then that is almost the very definition of a diminished player struggling to come to terms with his new reality.
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The Inter game is going to be the indicator of where the dressing room is.
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@sweeting used to have a running bit about how fickle fans are that they’d want to spend 50m on a top new young CB from another league they hadnt seen without recognizing Quansah is already better than all the supposed targets mentioned. And then Slot himself did it.
The use of the squad last year raised questions, but they were difficult to give too much weight to given how well everything was going. Once it became apparent he was actually willing to let Harvey and Quansah move on there was a different perspective give to that concern, but still most gave him the benefit of the doubt - “I dont get it, but I guess if he doesn’t rate them that highly its better to replace them with players he’ll use.” But now we’re pining for a player of Jacob Murphy’s quality and we’re stuck having to play a CB who has made mistakes with a frequency and WTFness way beyond anything the supposed calamity prone Quansah ever did and his judgement and use of players is starting to get much harder to defend
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With the way things are going this season, it is up in the air. They may play rubbish and great the next game, vice versa or go on a win or lose streak of 6 - 7 games!
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Yeah, you do that if the kid is ready to contribute big minutes. You dont do it to leave the door open to a continued developmental plan. People talk about the way Fergie showed faith in the class of 92 when he sold Kanchelskis, Ince and Hughes, but those lads had already been around the first team for a couple of season, with several of them having already got 30 or 40 first team appearances by that point.
But that isnt really what has happened though. Slot has spoken several times about viewing Flo and Hugo as options there. And obviously Chiesa is as well. I didnt agree with the sale of Diaz as I thought it unnecceasrily adding the player turn over in a summer when there was already a good amount having to do be done. But I think once it was decided to take the money, I think the questions are far more on Slot’s inability to give much of a shot to any of the 3 alternatives to Cody than they are Hughes leaving Slot short
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And how will we measure that, by performance, result and analysing body language?
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What are the odds on Mo even travelling? You would have to think he doesnt. And if the players are remotely united about it you’d also think that Inter would get a furious reaction to it.
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If Mo travels I will be frankly shocked.
I guess they will do the usual training thing at 12pm then Slot will do a PC in Milan in the evening, if our flight gets off on time.
Anyhow should I do the match thread?
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Unless some serious hashing out happens behind closed doors, I can’t see how Mo be part of the laying squad. If he doesn’t start the cameras will constantly be zoning in on his sour faced expressions.
To create a consistent, and hard to beat team, you need to focus on defense the spine, and heart. Jurgen focused on heart, and defense, early on (first with pressing, then with personnel). Look at how many 1 - 0 games Liverpool won, when Jurgen lead us to the CL title and then PL title. Hindsight is an easy crutch, but we should have been focusing on a tough DM, and CM, this past summer, but instead bought luxury players. I don’t know if Arne has it him to rebuild a tough, hardnosed defense, and spine.
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