He hasn’t met Peaches yet 
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The back catalogue may convince you otherwise, e.g. Fashion/man bag gate, politics or the masculinity threads…
edit was a reply to RedGedinLA
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Soon be off if he reads some of your "jokes"
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My jokes are grade A class material I’ll have you know.
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Robertson does already play like 1000 minutes, almost equal to Kerkez.
Gomez was in our lineup 3-4 games before his last injury.
Chiesa: did you watch him last game? He’s two levels below our standard. 5 minutes at the end of the game is the best he could give us 
.
Endo: he did play often at the end of last season. With our current setup, he’d surely get minutes if available.
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I think it’s both/and. Preseason was tragically disrupted by Jota. The players didn’t get the same depth of conditioning. It’s not that they did nothing, because clearly there was a preseason, but it wasn’t quite what was required to prepare optimally for the season.
The other part I think you have a good point, and I’d like to see Slot rotate a bit more. The rotation we have seen has, I think, been more due to his hand being forced more than a proactive approach. It’s debatable as to where the line is between being forced to act, and being proactive, as we have had injuries. Still, I think it’s a fair comment that he could do more rotation.
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We lost about 2 days with the Jota incident, and even with that delayed start of preseason it still kicked off before lots of the senior players were even due to report back. It just isn’t reasonable to suggest this cost us the training time needed to get physically ready
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Fair enough. Let’s add a bit more to the mental fatigue column then.
Slot could rotate a bit more proactively, and the issue will be helped by getting more players fit and integrated. But I still think there is something about the fatigue issue we are seeing that goes beyond physical conditioning.
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Robertson has been playing most of the champions league games, Gomez is made of paper, endo is injured which just leaves chiesa.
Slot doesn’t appear to rate chiesa. I don’t know why as he seems well liked in the squad and puts in the effort but perhaps, given slot sees him everyday, he doesn’t think he suits lot’s style of foot all or whatever it is.
Do I think chiesa deserves more of a chance? Yes. Do I think that Slot has a personal vendetta against him? No
Reading the shit on here reminds me why I fucked off for several years. Dalglish got a load of shit from a worryingly large number of our fans and I’m willing to hedge my bets somepeople wanted Klopp gone during his two ‘bad’ seasons.
The amount of disrespect Slot gets on here really is quite surprising but reassuringly at least he gets support from those that actually attend anfield as he should given he led Liverpool to only the 2nd league title in 35 years.
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I thought they delayed by a week?
Yeah 7-10 days if I remember correctly. Jota was heading back for training so it really wasn’t 2 days.
That period can impact however I think all this is guess work.
I am more concerned with VVD saying set pieces are a killer… they keep saying this but bar a period where they were on it, it seems nothing has changed.
Which thread is that in, @Maria ?
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No. The seniors were scheduled to report on that Monday. Because of his fitness/health issues Jota was going back early to do his fitness tests with the kids who start a few days earlier. His accident was on the thursday, the funeral was saturday and the seniors then started reporting in on the tuesday, with some of them coming in later as already scheduled due to their summer international commitments.
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I don’t see the level of disrespect you are alluding to. Things get out of hand sometimes, particularly during matches, but other than that in my experience the commentary has been largely within the appropriate boundaries.
Criticism may be harsh or exaggerated but that doesn’t make it disrespectful.
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Robertson on bench vs Palace, Galatasaray, Chelsea, ManU, Brentford, Forest, Eindhoven and Leeds. 7Ls and one Draw. He was brought on in only 3 of those 8 games.
Gomez was available and played a combined 16 minutes against Palace, Gala, Chelsea, ManU, Brentford, City, Forest and Einhoven. We lost all those games.
A lot has been said about Chiesa. I’m not saying he should have started more games but I think there should have been many games where he should come on around the hour mark.
Endo - unused sub in 9 league games. Would we have more points with his involvement? Probably not. But he could have been used more (from bench) to give some players a rest.
Like i said - terrible handling of his squad options.
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It’s hard to imagine the players got much done for the first two or three weeks of pre-season. It’s one thing turning up but when young lads are just wandering around shaking their heads in disbelief about Diogo then what can a coach do to really get them foocused? I think most of pre-season was probably a bust but the players rallied in Jota’s memory for the first few games before grief really set in again. New players to bed on too. Wasn’t easy for coaching staff.
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I think Chiesa really helped a lot tactically against Wolves. He got back and defended even played right back if Frimpong was caught forward (which are things Frimpong didn’t do when Chiesa went off).
I don’t see how a player who hasn’t played can be expected to suddenly start a match after hardly getting a glimpse as a sub before that. How can he be expected to be on the same wavelength as the others?
Anyway he did more than Salah has this season and was just as successful in attack.
To be honest I don’t know where this idea that he put in a poor performance comes from?
He was ok put in a shift and looked composed compared to usual.
@GermanRed is correct if these players had come on more they would be more performant as would thé the players who they replace. Just look at Gravenberch after 70 minutes he’s useless hardly moves and can not pass. Give him a rest now and again I’m sure we’d see something better from him.
This small group mentality that Slot pushes is nuts in the EPL when your also contending with cups and CL. Oh we’re so content to be knocked out of a cup at home by a pile of shit. Let’s get kicked out of the FA cup by Widecombe or some other nobody. What’s that as an attitude?
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If he was brought on in 3 of those 8 losses or draws this argument doesn’t convince me he should have been on for the other 5. Quite the contrary unless you left the other part of your argument out.
Similarly a strong argument for Gomez’s inclusion from the bench would be one where we turned it around due to his inclusion or statistics of how he helped preserve a winning position.
For my part, I don’t think Slot has the rotation balance right but… consistency and this “lack of rotation” served us well last year ultimately resulting in a PL title. Plus the champions of the last few seasons were also not fans of rotation (when unforced) and didn’t cope with a large change of personnel as well. This season: well I have to credit the strength of Arsenal’s squad - that bench is stacked unlike anything we have seen recently. Let’s see how it ends.
Without getting into specific players, low rotation is probably closer to the right strategy based on recent success or a lack of options from the bench. I’m of the opinion that Slot overdoes it slightly though.
Rio is a big one for me aswell…
many people just nod sagely and profess hes just too young to be put in certain situations…
well…he was OK to put in vs Newcastle and that went well, since then hes had feck all, and every five minutes he gets now is another step in the right direction to use him when his talents are really needed.
i know he made a mistake in some random game a while back, but thats the point of playing kids, to work through these moments.
he couldnt even get minutes vs Wolves at 2-1 up at home, when the game was screaming for a bit of invention…
few games back Slot was lamenting the lack of width, when Rio is our most natural wide player.
just throw the kid on, let him play through the mistakes…
not a major crime, and unlike all the text above i do understand theres many situations where its not the right time, but from what ive seen, hes good enough to really force something on the park …
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