When I was 12 one of our best players had a big fall out with our manager. Later on, in one of our biggest games of the season he had been instructed to man mark their best CM. At some point that guy was down on the group with an injury and rather than joining in with the general defending our lad just stood over him demonstrating to the manager that he wasnt going to leave his man, just as instructed. It was a proper “fuck you and your fucking shit tactics” statement.
That is what Grav looks like he’s doing holding his space and refusing to acknowledge that 5 yards away there is a player on the ball who actually needs attention
That’s not the point. The Sporting Directors, DoF’s etc have very rarely given interviews. I have no idea if Edwards has ever given one. In the off season they looked to address every position in the Club and bar the shitshow from Glasner that fucked up the Guehi move, it was by and large reinforcements from back to front. People are acting like Slot sat around watching while all of this went on around him and are now wanting the hierarchy to come and sit down for an inquest.
I’m sorry that’s just silly and has never happened before. It’s just another form of deflection from what has been a shit show of management in terms of getting a team playing a cohesive brand of football as well as mental and physical conditioning. That’s on Slot, nobody else. If we have a look at the video posted above about the midfield, how the hell is Hughes appearing to do an interview going to fix that?! Utterly ridiculous.
These conversations always go wrong when accusations start getting thrown around.
Nobody is trying to ‘deflect’ from Slot’s failings. I’m not his fucking dad. He is a big boy, and he’s going to have to answer to the things he has got wrong, and that might ultimately cost him his job. That’s fine.
But it is relevant to discuss the fact that post Klopp power at the club has shifted away from the manager and towards the director(s) above him. And yet nothing about the (now) head coaches accountability has changed.
Klopp used to say that as long as he had the first and last say in transfer talks he was fine, but I get the impression that this shifted a bit as his influence grew. I think Slot is a voice in the room about recruitment, but I don’t think for a second he is driving those conversations.
The transfer strategy seems in hindsight to have left big holes in the squad, a couple of players taking up spots that it was evident last year that Slot doesn’t rate, a huge problem with the home grown quota, a genuine crisis at centre back, a couple of aging players on massive contracts we might now struggle to move on, and lots of work still to do despite having spent half a billion quid.
Slot is clearly not having a great time managing the resources he has got, and I don’t want this to seem like a defence of the job he has done. But I also think a lot of the issues come down to the recruitment and the dearth of options available to him. For example, his does a manager that we know likes pacy wide players end up with a lad who can’t run anymore, a 17 year old that needs protection, a lad who just wants to cut inside, and a lad who is game but if we’re honest just isn’t good enough? He is fighting with one hand tied behind his back. He also seems to be scratching his arse with the one that isn’t tied up, but at least he his getting flak for that. Hughes, from what I can see, is nowhere to be seen.
I don’t think Hughes should be infront of the media every week, but it would be nice if we heard from him every now and then. It would be nice to hear some of the rationale for the transfer strategy. It would be nice to hear what he thinks has happened.
Yep, and he was also very good in the way he publicly communicated last season as well.
The reality is though that communicating effectively what is going wrong or what needs to be done to address it is a very different animal. Such situations introduce the temptation for prioritizing self-preservation and all of a sudden otherwise good communicators can be brought down by ego, hubris, lack of self-reflection, accountability and ownership.
You can go back the very first game of the season when Carra questioned him on how open we were against Bournemouth when we lost the ball. You would have thought that the Slot we had come to know, and the guy who had spent months preaching the need for increased control and reshaped our squad (I know, he doesnt buy his own players) and approach towards that, would have seen exactly eye to eye with Carra’s observations. But he not only refused to acknowledge it, he then went on to argue that even if it was true what is the big deal…that is what fans want. Mr “my league winning team isnt good enough to exert the level of control I want out of my team” has now, after one game, pivoted to exciting end to end action being the preference? It was a response to a fair observation that felt very discordant and frankly dishonest, and was maybe an early sign of the troubles in implementing this evolution of the side.
Tony’s been employed by the club for a while now (bumped into him when we played Maribor away in 2017, he was sat a few rows above me).
Then he dropped down to this current role at some point when Klopp was still here, probably replacing Matt McCann.
But yeah overall I can’t really fault how we do deal with the media as a club, we seem really well prepared.
The PR team has also come a long way, we’re among the best in the game when it comes to social media content.
When we talk about directors occasionally appearing, that is more in general terms, not necessarily to defend Slot.
It’s true that media obligations can eat a lot of energy, as we saw with Pep at Barca and Klopp near the end here.
It’s absolutely something worth discussing, because football is not about the manager pulling so many strings anymore, yet that same person faces the front line almost all of the time.
I assume the team know the situation? As I said elsewhere perhaps a interview on the main site however I will say this, Frimpong has had major injury issues, Kerkez is settling as is Wirtz and Hugo looks decent. Up to that point none of the recruitment was an issue. Leoni also is a talented lad who hopefully recovers well.
The major mistakes made seem over Central Defence but do we need an hour interview on what Hughes didn’t vision it would be an issue. Lets face it, its not the only time we’ve had this situation at the back. And we appear to have signed 3 youngsters for the U21s in that position so its been recognised there is an issue with the talent coming through.
If Hughes does a Q&A in the summer about our plan then cool, I just don’t get the issue with it.
Quoting this just for the context of the last paragraph ( sorry in advance )
A work mate supports liverpool , but because their from Devon , Plymouth is their second team…they were in a mess recently ( results apparently have improved) he mentioned that their owner and financial advisors and it may have been DOF , gave a forum streamed on youtube live that showed fans asking questions about the club and the plans etc…
Not saying this is what we should do, but did find it actually an interesting concept , as the 3 people.involved actually handled themselves well and answered all questions that was chucked at them…it would be good to see if liverpool could hold a reasonable thing similar …but thats just my opinion.
What I feel and see and feel about what I see has nothing to do with having and showing some respect to Arne, he brought immense joy to Liverpool and the fan base.
I bet he is working his arse off to turn it around, whether he can I don’t know, but I still have and show him RESPECT!
Yep not brilliant but then the effort, attitude and the intelligence of the players also needs looking at, he can’t micro manage every situation.
Their 2nd goal is a prime example and not putting the ball out of play, Virg’s fuck up etc.
I am not happy with aspects of our play, coaching and setup but the players are equally to blame at times, because wthout their fuck ups, poor game intellligence and massive drop offs in form we would be far better off.
I find it ironic that the lad in his avatar won the league in 65-66, and then finished 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 5th, 5th, and 2nd before finally winning it again.
He would have had people today calling him a fraud, a clown and demanding he be sacked.
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