I’ve just been looking over our squad and, with Salah and Robertson on their way out, we will only have Alisson, Endo and van Dijk aged over 30 next season.
There is a rumour on the BBC that Juventus are interested in Alisson (Story in Italian if anyone is interested/fluent):
I can’t see Endo moving with his current injury but I think the club would be interested in moving him on and that leaves van Dijk, who will be entering the last year of his contract.
We have signed a couple of very young centre backs, as well as players like Wirtz, Ekitiké and Kerkez who are highly rated up and comping stars.
If the club are looking at us being a young and developing squad, is that what the club are looking for in a manager? I’m thinking not so much with what Slot achieved last year, but what he did at Feyenoord or even AZ Alkmaar.
If you look at Feyenoord, in particular, he had an incredible turnover of players. In part, that is because they relay on a lot of loans. I’m not sure that particularly matches to us. We are looking at bringing in players who will be with us over multiple seasons and multiple contracts. Is Slot actually suited to that? For that matter would another manager (Alonso or whoever) be a better fit?
20 is a hyperbole, but assuming that other managers wouldn’t have won the title with the league playing out as it did is also false.
Furthermore, based on what we’ve seen this season, had Slot faced the same hardships Klopp did during his last season, he wouldn’t have made the Top 4, let alone finish 3rd after leading the table in March, and win the League Cup playing the kids.
If Slot had faced the same City side as Klopp did – when 90+ points was the norm – we would never have won the league. Keeping him on next year is a waste of time.
I still think Slot did an excellent job last season. This year has exposed a weakness in his armour. For me every manager has weaknesses, and it’s about how a club manages those, to minimise the impact.
As a club, I don’t think we were expecting Slot to struggle in what we have seen here.
We’re probably too late to put things in place to mitigate those problems now sadly. Unless the club sees something I don’t.
I don’t think that’s a fair argument to be honest. It’s like trying to compare things across different eras. Ultimately you can’t, and in many cases not a fair comparison.
Agree with this. Points totals are not a good comparison across seasons, see also comments from Arteta who should definitely know better. A lower total for the eventual winner doesn’t mean they weren’t as worthy as winners from other seasons with higher totals - the lower total can represent a much more competitive league overall and mean it was more difficult to win. I think we’ve seen over recent years teams across the EPL can be a lot more difficult to beat.
Every pundit bar 2 ex Everton players had us finishing top 4. A broad consensus of finishing third. Most seasons our final points total would lead to a 3rd place.
It’s important context both Arsenal and City underperforming by 15-20 points that year
You can only play your own game, and still go out perform. But the stars aligned that season.
Will be interesting to see the direction of his career afterwards. I suspect he will end up at an upper mid level German club.
All this comparing one season to another is complete false equivalence. Every season plays out differently. Different teams, managers, players, tactics, transfers, fixture schedules, injuries, sackings. The list is endless.
We didn’t need 90+ points to win the league like previous seasons but had we done, had we been pushed by someone else, I don’t see why we couldn’t have done so. The fact we didn’t doesn’t detract from the fact we won the league or make it a lesser title. That 26 game unbeaten run basically broke other teams hopes, bit like the run we had the start of the season Klopp won the league.
The reason Arsenal will win the league this season isn’t because we’ve been shit. It’s because they’re the best side in the league. Doesn’t matter whether they get one more point or 21 more, if they win the league they’re the best team just as we were last season. And like it or not Arteta will deserve the plaudits he’ll get for winning it just as Slot did. There’s no tempering that by saying “oh well everyone else was rubbish so it’s not really that much of an achievement”.
The Pep V Jurgen era was on another level and was a abnormally, it’s likely we will see 80+ points will generally win the title now for the next few years and with the expenditure changes that may be the pattern, not to say someone will go and achieve 90+ points again but you need to be pushed to achieve that. If Arsenal had slightly been better last season we would have got 90+
Anyhow as I have said, managers don’t last long when these questions are asked.
I respectfully disagree. I think it’s fair to argue that you play yo your competition. During Klopp’s time, City being the result of the cheating cunts they are, is a motivating factor to push ourselves higher.
I don’t think we ever saw 100 point seasons with second place being in the 70’s or low 80’s did we? Happy to be corrected.
And that’s my view too: in my opinion, Slot won the league thanks to the foundations laid by Klopp and City’s collapse. The fact that you see it differently is no problem for me.
I’m now getting ready for another year of that utterly tedious Slot football.
