I agree with the first part, it happens all the time.
On Isak though, I don’t think he was brought in to play anywhere else but up top. But obviously Wirtz’s second best position is playing inside left.
Overall we can agree that having Ngumoha as the 6th and Chiesa as the 5th forward isn’t great. But also the Ekitike and Isak move, while keeping Salah… created a lot of confusion how we’d do it.
When sweet problems become a bit too sweet for everyone’s good.
Leoni is crocked, Gomez is a perennial crock (see yesterday, case in point), Isak is out for months but I was talking more of a winger (Diaz replacement), and the market has been open for a month.
We’re most likely going to lose both Konate and Gomez at the end of the season, so how about bringing someone now. Then what happens if Konate - who incidentally has been out of form for most of the season - is unavailable, enjoy Endo in defence.
Question for people, if we bought Semenyo and Guehi on 1st January do you think it would have solved our defensive and attacking issues?
No.
The excuse would be ‘no preseason’ 
Care to share how you think transfer business is as easy as pushing “enter” on a keyboard?
In truth, I can’t answer your questions, because I’m not sitting in meetings within the club. I bet we are working on stuff. We just can’t see it.
I think our problems lie in midfield to be honest, bar the obvious defensive shortages that is.
Yet it was a midfield that bossed the prem last season and after a chastening experience in Paris came back the following week with one of the best performances of the season in the return leg.
When such a large collection of previously top players and serial winners start playing poorly at the same time, player-focused explanations are really difficult to support.
Specifically MacAllister
I agree in part but Dom has been excellent this season and Grav and Mac were both excellent last season. Their form is concerning but I’m still at a loss why Slot has moved away from developing Gravenberch into an elite defensive midfielder. It was the success story of last season after we missed out on Zubimendi.
One wide attacker, 2 CBs
If Salah leaves another wide attacker and then we can think about another midfielder.
He wanted us to play more in the final third which moves everyone further forward. But it has had an especially big impact on Grav because his ability to retain the ball under pressure was viewed as a key to unlocking “low blocks” as it allowed us to play the ball into him in tight spaces and have us play through them and in the process take out a couple of defenders. It is the same principle as us using short passes at the back to play through a press, just 50 yards higher up the pitch.
What he seemingly didnt account for is how we’d get the ball into those areas or what would happen when we lost the ball
Exactly why I’m lost at what exactly is going on.
?
I think it should be their job to acknowledge the problems in the squad and have a strategy in place, and those problems have been talked about since the summer. If they’re happy with this, fine. In the end, you reap what you sow.
I remembered Gravenberch expressed the desire to be further forward and Slot has granted that to him despite Gravenberch only becoming world class at the DM position…
The biggest difference with Gravenberch last season was not a new position that unlocked things in him, but that for the first time since he was about 18 he was getting regular games and so was able to show his qualities. He is still doing the same this season, just in a structure that is exposing and isolating him a lot more.
Gravenberch’s lack of quality on the ball has become painfully apparent since the opposition have learned not to get tight to him. If he can’t turn a player he doesn’t hurt teams with the ball.
That, and no Trent covering for him with his ridiculous passing range.
I’m not sure about solved, as it feels like the issues we are experiencing go beyond signings.
Still, those two signings would have definitely helped. We are obviously short in central defence and short on the wing.
There’s not much difference to how Gravenberch is being used.
This is not a game of FIFA where you control how players play with your joystick, regardless of their skill or position. It doesn’t work like that “Slot made him a world class DM last season and now he has abandoned that”.
Last season (at the end of it), Slot said Gravenberch needs to improve his passing game.
This season, Gravenberch said that when the moment is right, he has the freedom to go forward. Of course he has and he should, because he has some natural skills that can be good for the team when he pops up forward.
The team needs to be balanced of course and being in a double-pivot structure, it’s absolutely fine if in some actions one goes more and the other one stays more.
Part of the defensive issues are not solved by telling Gravenberch to just “stick to being a DM”.
After that, the reactions to that would be “we need more from our DM going forward to break down teams!”.
I think its quite presumptuous if not naive to think that everything was under our control and all we need to do to do is force their hand…
At the time it did look like an excellent call. I’m even on record here, saying that it’s hard to admonish Hughes for choosing Slot based on the data at his disposal. Unfortunately though, data can’t account for everything. It couldn’t predict that Slot would continue to manage his expensively assembled squad as if he’s still in the Eredivisie, or that he would fail at many critical tactical aspects in England when he excelled at those areas in the Netherlands.
I know that it’s not a fair criticism on my part and that I’m essentially demanding some level of clairvoyance but at the end of the day, Slot is on the chopping block in his second season. Just by being in such a difficult position after winning the title in his first season with all the leeway and credit that it buys, suggests that he wasn’t the right appointment or else no one would be contemplating about P45ing him even after this season.
Not sure about which outcome you are referring to. If you mean the title, I was never in the camp of those who thought that it was an impossibility. Slot inherited an excellent squad and got it running like a well-oiled machine for about six months. It was enough to win the title which a great achievement but it’s not enough at a club like Liverpool.
If you mean Slot’s current predicament, I and a few others had been raising concerns from February/March last year. The warning signs were there but most were happy to ignore them.
I was thinking about this yesterday. Gravenberch is essentially in the same position TAA was. We are asking him to both bomb forward and to track back. Now, Gravenberch may also be as guilty of going walkabouts as TAA was, but it really is a very difficult task. Especially in a malfunctioning team.