“He said my name twice!”
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Yep, here’s the pisstake part I mentioned 
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From a quality standpoint, the squad Klopp inherited isn’t even in the same league with the one he left to Slot and he still didn’t dismantle it within his first two transfer windows.
Elliott was good enough to have played 2,800 minutes in Klopp’s last season, are we supposed to believe that he is now useless because Slot wouldn’t give him the time of day? Similar arguments can be made for Endo, Quansah who is doing well at Leverkusen and Chiesa, whom you may not rate, but has still been better than Gakpo and Salah when he’s played. Even Morton has been a revelation for Lyon.
It’s within Slot’s rights not to rate some players and move them along eventually, but to ignore them while they are still part of the squad and can contribute, is indefensible.
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It’s the double standards involved. Quansah was condemned on his first 45 minutes under Slot. Konate gets a free pass for being a fucking liability game after game. MacAllister has been garbage for a long time yet Endo hasn’t had a look-in. It has been like playing with 10 men when Salah has been on the pitch for most of this season and I refuse to believe Elliott or even Chiesa couldn’t have contributed more given a decent chance.
I get it, Slot wants shut of them but they can’t have been any worse than what he was picking week after week.
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Elliott is still a liverpool player.
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Slot taking over from Klopp was supposed to be like for like football wise but it couldnt be further apart, slot lacks everything Klopp had personality, the way he got the liverpool fans, the football, man management, the way he used the youth players even the fist pumps at the end of games. Slot is boring the football is boring his press conferences are very boring the way he repeatidly goes on about the low block boring , keeps refering to the Psg game where our keeper saved us from a mauling boring. Yawn.
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Was he any different last season? Or because he was winning alot of games so we were willing to look beyond but now he is not, we are picking apart every single thing about him that we don’t like?
He wasn’t supposed to be like for like football wise.
First, because it’s impossible, even if it was the goal. There is no copy/paste.
Their ideas have a few touching points, especially off the ball, we saw some of that already. Implementing that and keeping it consistently (also after the summer we had) is something different and we’ve struggled this season, due to different reasons (and of course Slot is part of that).
Personality wise, yeah, if we compare everyone to someone almost universally likeable like Klopp and if that is so important in the whole package… then yeah, unfortunately you’re in for a boring ride even long after Slot.
Coaches are there to primarily be coaches.
If they are interesting characters that are funny, touch on different topics, that’s just extras.
The media also has a part in it, with the amount interviews. What is there to talk about that much? Not that much, especially in public.
If someone can’t handle hearing more or less the same things every few days, don’t listen to it then.
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We were told he played a similar type of football, loved pacy wingers creating the chances for the forwards but he has playing walking football like the legends play. 
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His record in Holland suggests he isnt fixed to any one way..there is obvious concerns about the standard of coaching by several respected posters on here that have me worried but otherwise i would put what we are seeing down t0 trying t9 overcome a dozen issues at once.
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At the start of last season what was on offer was to me very pleasing. I understand what we were trying to do and what we did. Unfortunately all this slowly started to evaporate and nothing seemed to be being done about it.
I became very concerned about the physical and mental fitness of certain players and commentated specifically about Gravenberch. Slot’s small squad mentality imo was really hurting us. Slot himself started saying things like ‘the players aren’t playing how I instruct them to’ ‘they haven’t the confidence to play how I have instructed them’. This sort of attitude should sound alarm bells!
He fixates on the PSG sequence of matches however our problems started well before that from what I was watching.
The problem is he, Slot, didn’t see this coming and once it was on us didn’t have an answer.
At times I see glimpses of that ‘coherence’ we had at the beginning of last season. Unfortunately it never lasts. 5 minutes in a match isn’t enough.
I’m not sure he has learnt his lesson. The fact that he now reiterates fitness all the time compounds this.
He says he’s learnt that rotation is needed yet is very reluctant to do it still. He essentially relies on trying to play a lazy low block to give the players a rest, which doesn’t work as it’s mentally exhausting and isn’t even executed correctly.
Slot hasn’t got the balance right and doesn’t seem to have the management skills to turn it around (he prefers taking holidays imo). Yet if he can get the balance right and play that football he wants to, the football that I saw and now see on occasion, I will be very happy. The question is will Slot manage to get there?
I don’t think anyone can answer that and least of all Slot.
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I would argue that the integration of new signings has been terrible, and a major reason for our poor form.
We had just won the league, and a major rebuild was not necessary, it was a choice. Klopp left the club in a wonderful position and a major reason we won the league was Slot maintained and built upon what Klopp left behind. That through went out the window last summer. I agree players do take a while to settle, but signing and then throwing half a dozen new players on the field together they are going to look like strangers and the team will lose its identify. That’s what we have seen. We saw a revolution occur not an evolution.
What Klopp did so well is he slowly integrated players into the team into our system. New players had to earn the right to play. This also relieved some of the pressure. Key to our success was also a designated leadership group (Salah, VvD, TAA, Robertson and Alisson), this has now been disbanded. Player power (or leadership) can be used correctly and it was key to our mentality monsters tag.
I think the new signings, and removing the leadership group has been compounded by shifting our systems which we had no choice when TAA left. In short we made changes when we didn’t need to, and had enough on our plate already.
On the transfers I actually don’t think we have a strict transfer policy of right person, right price, and right time. If I am honest I am still not 100% sure what the plan is for integrating Ekitke, Writz and Isak as a trio. All I think are all great players. I don’t know the system, formation or plan. It feels so out of character for the club (more akin to Chelsea). The Isak transfer seemed more because we could rather than needed to. None of the players really Diaz replacement.
On outgoing players Diaz is currently regarded as the best transfer in the Bundesliga this season. We made a disastrous agreement for Elliot and we let a Quansah go before securing his replacement. Notably he recently gave an interview where his was praising former team mates. When asked about Slot his response was muted : “I don’t need to speak about my relationships with other managers”
On other man management/relationships I don’t need to reiterate Ramsey discussion above, or Salah situation. But his response to Harvey Elliot situation was pretty poor “He’s an Aston Villa player. So if you want to ask things about an Aston Villa player, you should ask Unai Emery.” That’s disappointing. When the journalist highlighted he was technically still a Liverpool player. He simply said there’s no recall option. This for me is poor. Both in terms of a response but also from an ethical perspective. If we wanted him back there is no doubt Villa would agree. Instead he rots in their reserves. I don’t think this would occur under Klopp.
Then there are the rumours wirh the fall out with the DOF. Ben Bocsak who is a reasonable journalist (highlighted this was over Ngumoha). Gary Linker highlighted something similar.
From my perspective after an amazing first year. He made huge mistakes in the summer. Mistakes he needs to own. Whilst I doubt he will be sacked mid season, unless we see a considerable turnaround in the next one or two months I think he will be gone.
Might be harsh, but I personally don’t think scraping top 4 will inspire an enough confidence, at the top. A positive momentum will be key.
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We do realize that in a transfer agreement (say, for Elliott), you need not only Liverpool (and what we want in terms of fee) and a potential buyer, but the player and his entourage to also take part in engineering a move and agree on where they’re going and when?
I wonder what Harvey had on his table, what he wanted and didn’t want (we’ll never know) and what were his agents doing all summer. Something is also down to Villa of course, their situation with recruitment and that decision. Because it’s not a great situation for them either, even if for Harvey it’s the worst.
A loan with obligation to buy under certain (in this case, easy) conditions = after 10 games played is basically the closest thing to a direct sale.
Harvey is in such a limbo right now though that like I say, I wonder what the hell did his agents do when they negotiated that. I’d be seriously looking at changing them if I was the player, if it’s not Harvey who had all sort of other, perhaps better opportunities.
It also doesn’t help that he also played for us in those few games before his move.
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lol. Ok
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It is even better for Villa. It’s basically a free option not to pursue the purchase while we whistle. It was terrible business to agree this by Elliot and ourselves. We should have said no and either Villa got serious, Harvey could have gone to another team - Leverkusen etc or he stayed with us.
We’ve had the worst of all worlds - no money for the player while being frozen out at another club ensures his value drops more than if he didn’t play for us plus mentally and physically he’s likely to be off the pace. It’ll be harder to sell him next summer thanks to Villa and we’ve created the situation by allowing a very valuable player to be ‘sold’ with a free return option. Very poor work by Hughes et al.
Agreed. A good manager (or lawyer) would have definitely not agreed to a loan having already played games - effectively snookering himself.
It’s not great for them, they’re paying (most, if not all of?) his wages and don’t want him to play 10+ games. That’s their inside battle.
For us, we obviously wanted the money we wanted. It was late in the window and for me, it’s mostly a question for Villa did they really want him and Elliott and his agents.
The worst is for Elliott who might have a season basically without football.
Emery said that they already agreed a few months ago that they’re not sure they want to activate the option.
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What intrigues me between the squad inherited from Jurgen, and this squad he has begun to create in his own image; with additional signings and departures; is that the squad of old would have been supremely fit under the Jurgen tutelage, run forever, yet today’s squad always look gassed at the 60min mark…
Immaterial of the players names at the moment, you would hope each individual footballer is in prime physical condition when he runs onto the pitch
Makes me wonder if a slowly evaporating fitness level has occurred since the management (and backroom staff) changed hands… might also go some way in explaining our deteriorating form on the pitch..
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I don’t understand. Unless there were any doubts expressed by the Villa side on Harvey’s future, and why should there have been given the rep of their DoF and his reputed relationship with the manager, I can’t see how anyone would have thought he wouldn’t have got his 10 games and secured a permanent move to a team on the cusp of the CL places.
Yeah, it’s very unusual.
10 games played is nothing really, but who the hell even negotiated that. And there’s more than Liverpool and Villa’s party to agree a deal.
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