He did turn second-tier players like Henderson, Gini, and Ox (unfortunately just for a while) into elite ones after his arrival.
The structure of the deal was at least in part because of Villa’s FFP concerns. Its unlikely they could have committed so much cash up front.
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I want Alonso, now
Slot out, now
Slot on a yellow card. Bournemouth might be the end for him…
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Throwing points away at home to really average teams he can’t last beyond the season regardless if they stick with him now.
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We need rid. The players dont like pkaying for him and the football is boring as fuck.
Can still get top 4 if we change now. We wont if he stays.
Not beaten a newly promoted team at home this year
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I get the feeling now after the Burnley game, the players seem to be trying to sort out the best way to play amongst themselves. No leadership in evidence on or off the pitch, nor any North star blueprint direction to follow…
If we stagger to the latter stages of the CL, only to get swilled by one of the other European sides by playing like today, then it will be difficult to keep defending Slot
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I don’t think that there’s much to blame on Slot for today, but you do have to ask questions about the fitness levels. Burnley were chasing the ball for the entire game and looked fresher and fitter at the end.
This is becoming a recurring theme, and it just reinforces the perception that the preseason work was severely lacking.
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My issue is what is being said at halftime when we are playing well, we come out conservative and look to consolidate rather than commit.
It happens week in week out, whilst the opposition seem to come out pumped up.
We need to start games and 2nd halfs snarling wanting to fight and run to win the right to play the football we are capable of and are now seeing glimpses of in the last few 1st halves of games.
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We had plenty to win it, but we didn’t. A draw at home against a promoted side is poor, especially in the context of numerous other poor results.
It’s another data point on the Slot in/out argument, and it doesn’t go in his favour. You can argue that we played ok in the first half, and we did. And then equally you can argue that when we hoped we might build on it second half, we didn’t step up.
Plenty of boos coming through at the end on TV here, which is concerning, because when the match going fan starts to turn, it’s hard to come back.
It’s still not at the point of Slot out for me, but he’s obviously on thin ice I would imagine Hughes will be reaching out to Alonso’s people, at least for an exploratory ‘what if’ type of conversation.
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That was mostly a pretty good performance today, the only thing I wanted to see when we lost control for a few minutes before their goal was Mac to come on and help us regain control. We missed too many today, from the penalty, Kerkez’s chance early on, other similar situations. Should’ve scored more than 1 goal.
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Can’t we get rid of Hughes. I heard he is not an approachable type. Even Heitinga found him difficult to deal with in terms of his contract negotiation.
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And then
Pure 2000s vibes 
Did he? Is this on paper.
I am actually asking questions about him but I’m not sure we know much about him.
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I can not see what’s good about playing passes that my grandson can run faster than let alone an opposition midfielder/striker … a backward pass at that.
Forward passes to feet that players don’t attack. They just stand there looking dump.
These are things you train to do!
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What as this to do with Hughes?
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Not going to put too much of the blame on him today, more than enough chances to win that game and the players did their usual act of gifting a goal away.
That being said, 5 wins in 17 PL matches now, he has to be under huge pressure and surely knows it. Club clearly not willing to back him in January, pretty obvious what direction this is heading in.
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Or that the balance between recovery, technical/tactical, and fitness is off throughout the week. If that was the case last year you wouldn’t have seen it immediately. You might even get benefits in the short, but eventually after a few months, you’d expect the side to start to look collectively leggy…like we did once March hit last year
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I just don’t think he is a good negotiator.
Hypothetically speaking, I just don’t want Xabi Alonso being put off coming to LFC if he has to deal with him.
You’re right, it has nothing to do with Arne.