This is the thing that I find a bit bizarre. It feels like trying to find fault in a brilliant season. It doesn’t feel that far removed from moaning about pre-season games.
Knocking off after the title is won is not a new thing - it was common in the sixties, seventies and eighties. As Slot noted this week, just removing that pressure can cause a 2-3% drop off and that’s all it takes in the PL.
I do understand that as fans we want to win games. It would have been nice to get ninety. It would have been nice to only lose two games. It would have been nice to leave a proper one on Arsenal.
But that really can’t compare with using the last four games to think about the longer term future of the club. Rest for players that need rest. Opportunities for players that need opportunities. Time to properly celebrate. Time to do things the thrust of a season don’t give you chance to do - like bonding, time away together.
Even little things like maybe Slot is able to take his eyes of the league and turn his attention to recruitment. We seem to have Frimpong done, and it’s looking positive on a couple other deals. Doesn’t that happen if Liverpool are ‘being professional’ in the last four games. Getting those deals over the line early means they are around for pre-season. Which means they have a better chance of settling in quickly. Which means….
Yes, Slot could have shut down the celebrations and everything else going on to win those last few games. But I think that could have done a lot of damage - to morale, to fitness, to planning for next season etc.
So what you are saying is that when we sign players we don’t tell/show them that it’s fucking brilliant playing for Liverpool.
I appreciate there isn’t a function for this on your football management game, but in reality selling the club to prospective players is something that does happen.
I’ll start off this post with saying I don’t know enough to make an informed comment, but who’s to say really that the conditioning staff aren’t involved in our decisions regarding the past few fixtures?
They don’t have to be in the red zone to let off a little and reduce their intensity to prepare for next season, nor does the reduction in intensity have to be that large that it would increase the likelihood of injury, given what we already know about the competitiveness of the league. There are no “easy” games in the league, and it feels as though just a minute decrease in intensity is enough to produce what feels to fans as a massive gulf.
Yes
And yours is also an opinion.
And just that.
You have no clue as to what the instructions are for the last four matches.
I seriously doubt that Mo Salah is easing off, when he has records in sight? Or if Robbo plays on Sunday he won’t get stuck in?
People want the club winning and as I said, an extra 1 or 2% would have beaten Arsenal.
And again, its not a binary situation.
The season has been brilliant, enjoyable, incomprehensible that we are at these points…
Losing or drawing the remaining games doesn’t reduce that. You can embrace the victory in the league anyway.
I am celebrating the league and hoping Salah breaks records and Chiesa scores in front of the Kop.
They are not mutually exclusive.
And just to add…because someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t make them a fucking snowflake. You’re better than a jibe like that.
[quote=“Quicksand, post:147, topic:4906, full:true”]
People want the club winning and as I said, an extra 1 or 2% would have beaten Arsenal[/quote]
I’m now just repeating myself, and @redalways, and Arne Slot, but that extra 2% is not easy to find when you remove the competitive edge from the fixture.
It does not not take a huge amount to lose or draw a game of football in this division. Just the fact that we have nothing to play for, while Chelsea and Arsenal were still looking for points to secure top five, and Brighton trying to get Europe, is enough of a swing. The simple fact that one team is playing for something and the other isn’t is enough on its own to tip the balance, and that’s before we get to conscious decisions to rest and rotate.
We can say that the players should be able to find that couple of percent, but I’m not sure they can. And I’m not sure they should.
I think Chelsea can be written off as an immediate post victory hangover, but it is notable that against both Brighton and Arsenal we lost the game in the second half after holding the lead. That, to me, looks like a team not quite able or willing to push themselves through a fatigue barrier to hold on.
And part of me thinks ‘quite right’. Do we really want players going down injured in meaningless games. Do we want players still carrying fatigue into next season? For what? Pride? Bragging rights? Getting 89 points rather than 86?
Maybe people need to understand the difference between a generic “talk of x can fuck off” and a personal insult.
I can’t remember where I saw it, but the much-maligned squad players were subbed off when we were still leading against Brighton. They didn’t lose us the game.
Maybe, just maybe you need to wind it in a bit.
Its weird, you being the hostile in the discussion.
Obviously our views on things won’t always align, but theres surely room for opinion.
You don’t agree with people so you call them snowflakes? Really beneath you, as I said you’re better than jibes like that.
And you know what, yout opinion could be the nearest to the truth…
