If I’m honest that statement doesn’t even say that. It’s actually interesting that it suggests the improvements. At this moment he is meeting their expectations for the season more than likely. Especially with the issues surrounding the club.
He will know they have to improve he has admitted as much as has Hughes. If things don’t improve I still expect a mutual agreement of termination in the Summer. It’s if he actually does start to show improvements when the differences between the club hierarchy and the fans may start to differ
even if he turns it around starting this weekend, bar winning the CL, at what point do you say it just took too long to turn around? its been going on from anywhere between 13 - 6 months depending on who you ask…
If he is still here next season, he gets a clean slate from me. I will be fair minded and not jump all over him at the first sign of a bad result or lull in form. I won’t cite all the ‘previous’ of this season and use it as a weapon against him either. If he starts the season it is a clean slate.
My legitimate concern is that a decent-sized part of our fan base won’t be able to do that, which is why I think it may be untenable for Slot moving forwards here, unless we somehow managed to do something in the last part of the season that we haven’t looked like doing for a long time.
I was late in coming to the view that Slot would probably be let go after an end of season review, while for months many fans have been calling for his head. It is that block of fans that I don’t believe will be measured next season, so Slot might have a near-impossible task on his hands.
Edit
Let’s see how we go in the last part of the season. We might win old Big Ears for all I know! If so, we can go into next season under Slot with hope renewed. Then again, in the next week or two we might lay an egg and the clamor for Slot will be irresistible.
Effectively we are still in the CL, we are in the FA Cup (though probably don’t care about that and they still have CL qualification close on hand.
They know what’s really going on. If we start to achieve outcomes then it’s going be hard for them to do that, but this statement doesn’t surprise me and not sacking him doesn’t surprise me.
If it continued and our season petered like most expect it will then I’d be surprised if he is kept.
But if you look at what’s on paper and what was the possible options maybe they just didn’t think there was much point in dumping Slot for an appointment of Page or Gerrard.
Personally I think he will go and he should go come the end of the season.
The only thing that would surprise me is if they offered him a new contract. Do that then I would be surprised, especially with no improvement shown.
The idea he has lost the squad I don’t actually think that will happen.
Slot deserves to be sacked at this point and at any big club in the world it would have happened by now. Guess we’re a ‘special’ club
It seems the hierarchy including the owners are ‘fine’ with missing out on CL football. After 31 games played you have to be very naive to expect us finishing Top5.
So yeah I can definitely see us going into next season even if we miss out on Top5, and the two remaining competitions.
Of course we want the team to win more matches, win more trophies, and right at the sharp end of the league table. One of the main issue that most of the supporters have is the horrible spectacle being deployed in front of us, week in, week out. You rarely get any joy from watching the team performs. That is what the supporters are using as the stick to beat Slot with. Slot not valuing squad players is also a massive sore point.
I was hoping that Slot would turn things around, giving us good football to watch (not often enough); using the squad (frequently not putting players in prime positions) and bench (5 minutes here and there, or just threw the kitchen sink in when behind) properly. However, I have pretty much lost all faith with Slot because of the crap we have been served in the past few months.
Well, I can tell you exactly what will happen because we have been here before eleven years ago with Rodgers:
“During the season, camps became established and as the season petered out, the in camp was almost non existent as is happening now. As it happened, he somehow managed to stay in position, fired his friend and assistant coach (the guy who wore the shorts all the time, I forget his name) and pressed on with the job despite the misgivings of the majority of the fans that summer. When the season started, he had lost the goodwill of the fans already and only a barnstorming start to the season would have saved him. While we got off to a reasonable start to the season with two wins and draw in the League, the football was unconvincing, and the heaving undercurrent of the fans sentiment was immediately felt when we lost 0-3 to West Ham at home in game 4. The wheels fell off immediately afterwards showing just how tenuous his relationship with the fans and his grip on the squad was and we proceeded to win something like one out of the next 8 or 9 and he was mercifully sacked after the derby”
While we cannot say Slot would suffer the same fate what we can know is exactly what you just asked, ‘what would the fans do if he’s still here’. Go into the season with hope, but trepidation. Support but little patience. Unfortunately, that is the way it is.
I think we all know the score at this point. It’s self-defeating for the club to not show support to the manager while we have some big games coming up. Let’s see what happens. Maybe we will show something we’ve not really managed to show this season and there could be a lovely end of season surprise. Or maybe it will fall short and confirm Slot’s fate.
What else can the club do other than to offer their support? If he has said himself that he would be leaving it is another matter, but until there is a new coaching team coming in, they are hardly going to be chanting “you’re getting sacked in the morning” from the sidelines.
Having said that, there are seeds in Pearce’s piece that sows doubt.
I dont see anything in any of these statements that is inconsistent with letting him go in the summer. This is not “full support” language. This is “we’ve put an employee on a performance plan” language, and if you are ever formally put on one those you should start looking for a new job.
The concerning part is whether the players still believe in Slot’s vision and tactics. How will that lack of trust impact the current group of players, whether they want to continue at the club long term, or start thinking of lives outside of LFC. Furthermore, how will that impact our recruitment of talents, or the club has to go back to potentials and lower price tier of players?
They say nothing. They are intended to try to calm the waters without committing to anything. No one should have their opinion on what is likely to happen moved or solidified in any way as a result of these nothing statements
Agree that there is nothing that precludes them from sacking him in the summer, but talking about there being mitigating factors and understanding that it’s an unusual season feels to me a bit stronger than they really needed to go. And I think this…
…is a particularly strange reading. Talk of full support and unequivocal backing does not look like a manager being put on notice. The stuff about the noise being hard to ignore looks like Pearce’s tupenneth to me.
If I were a betting man, I’d put it at 75% he will be here at the start of the season, and 25% he won’t be.
“Yet Slot has undoubtedly made mistakes. He hasn’t impacted games in the same way with either tactical tweaks or personnel changes, and too often Liverpool’s team structure has disintegrated when they have been left chasing games. FSG is not blind to that.”
