Ooh la la. Frenchies in the house.
I did fear that whoever followed Klopp would struggle to live in the shadow he cast. Admittedly I did not think that shadow would be over 18 months long and still no sign of it ending.
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Ferguson’s shadow still looms over Old Trafford
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The first nine months didn’t seem too bad…
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No not bad at all. Easy when you’re winning, with “Klopps squad” to quote some.
Seriously? What is that based on?
Where do you guys get this from?
I don’t understand how anyone can think or say this…
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I’ve seen this floating around for some time. That’s a bit petty, no? He won the league title, full stop. Whatever his current problems are, we should recognize his merit. Winning the PL isn’t a thing for slouches.
Same comment for this one. The first nine months were great (August 2024 until April 2025). We won the PL title for the second time in 35 years. If that isn’t great, what is? Remember our run in the CL too? It needed an incredible PSG side to stop us, with a bit of luck for them.
The rot started, for me at least, with our stupid summer actions in the transfer market, and then, the start of this season.
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What if Slot is not a top class manager yet though? And instead a manager with many of the qualities of a top class manager but lacking a little of the experience? I’m quite confident that the managerial search approach wasn’t to recruit an old established manager for a couple seasons but a young manager who could be around for the long term.
If so, then we should expect some bumps.
I would also add that rarely, rarely does a manager really reach the top without some patience and continuity. And it could be about putting the right coaches around him too (a Pako to Benitez).
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I agree, I’m just stating what some are thinking / saying. Not necessarily people on here I might add. Cant wait for certain press outlets to run with it if they havent already.
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Performance wise we went through a real rut after the Southampton game at the beginning of March. I think we put in probably only 2 good performances from that point through the end of the season (PSG second leg and Spurs the day we clinched). At the time a lot of that was put down to the specific circumstances: PSG are a really good side and we actually gave them a lot of trouble in the second leg, cup finals are weird, we’re just tight with the pressure of trying to get over the line with the title…and then once we clinched it against Spurs the subsequent bad performances were written off as not important. It was all reasonable at the time.
But statistically if you are looking for the inflection point that distinguishes the point where we changed from being good to a team that was struggling it was not the summer, it was March. Our defensive competitiveness fell off a cliff at that time and we have never recovered it for more than fleeting periods. This is why some people are referring to this as a period of 12 months of worrying performances.
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Nine months, you mean?
I still believe that the massive upheaval during the summer had a more meaningful impact on where we are today than difficult performances during last spring. We were in the title race, pressure was raking up, and some games had to be won with grit and fighting spirit, but our lads did it and ended up deserved champions.
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A “year”, an approximation of a time period that is used to distinguish it from explanations that focus on things put upon him this summer
The Arsenal 2-2 was excellent for about 60 minutes.
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Absolutely nailed it.
The two 2-0 wins against Newcastle and Man City at the end of February were the last time we looked a competent team that was in control of what we were doing.
There was the odd decent half here and there and we did play well against PSG in the 2nd leg but most of the wins were scabby, Everton and West Ham at Anfield and Leicester away spring to mind. The performances in the Caraboa Cup final and PSG away were dreadful. The defeat at Fulham the same.
The rot set in 10 months ago and doesn’t show any sign of abating.
As RedArmada said we have been bad under Slot for longer than we’ve been good.
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I’ll take a step back if you don’t mind. There were a number of us on here and elsewhere massively concerned with how we conducted ourselves on and off the pitch at the end of last season.
A lot of it left a bad taste in the mouth. There came a point when professional pride/obligation should have come into it but it never did. The players and management acted like big-time Charlies and have ended up a laughing stock.
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It is the question people should be asking and we can do that without demeaning his success from last year or people being precious about it.
He proved to be at minimum a steady set of hands who managed the continuity of what he inherited well making small tweaks but keeping the majority of what was already working well. He should be credited for that. But we should not use that as a crutch when questioning if the vision for the changes he then wanted to see in his second year were the right direction or whether he had it in him to change that much and keep the standards that high.
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Absolutely fair. I thought he absolutely nailed it last year until we were given a football lesson by PSG, twice. To me that showed flaws in us as a team but equally the Premier League. It reminded me of old times to be honest.
What came next for us, is difficult for me comment on fully. It feels like there’s no one thing, more a combination of few issues that has resulted in the drop off we see. The solution doesnt appear to be sn easy or obvious one.
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On the other hand, Klopp didn’t win it with that same squad!
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And nearly every Klopp team has suffered a slump at some point, whether that is from injury, exhaustion or whatever.
I think what worries me is that we aren’t seeing a massive improvement. We have gone from dreadful to mediocre. I can’t really pinpoint a single personnel problem, because the players we have are good, just not as a team together.
I suppose we are still waiting for whatever vision they have for the team to take place. The problem with the set-piece coach might be related to that.
I think the frustrating thing is that I can’t see where we are heading, and that was clear with Klopp from the start (even if he did break all our players to begin with).
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The rest of the season should hopefully tell us what we need to know. If we continue to stumble along I can’t see how Slot stays on beyond the summer. If we have a turn around that sees us qualify for the CL and play better stuff, he will probably stay on.
My prediction is that I think we will do enough to qualify for next season’s CL (whoever said we were “Moments FC” was making a very good point) but the performance level will still not quite be up to snuff.
At that point, those who want a change will have plenty of data to go on by the end of the season. Those who want Slot to stay will argue that it is a good return for two seasons - league winners, and then a transitional season where we still finished in the CL spots.
If that’s how it pans out I would imagine the decision on Slot’s future won’t be as clear cut as we would like it to be, but if a candidate like Alonso becomes available that might tilt it toward a change. Slot would justifiably feel hard done by, but on the other hand, it’s tough at the top.
In the absence of a clearly better candidate, if Slot takes us into a third season I would hope to see some sort of reset as it will be awful to see people on edge, ready for a pile-on the manager for the slightest misfortune near the start of season three.
Could go either way, but I am hoping Slot does enough, because if he does, it will mean Liverpool Football Club are starting to do well too.
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