Just one more instance of how this side is less than the sum of the parts. Set piece defence in particular should come fairly easily.
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Also, surely someone could work with Gakpo to use his height in the box to some effect. Rather than getting him to take terrible fucking corners in the 90th minute when we need a winner
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That was the last of the 8 games that constituted a so-called easier run of fixtures.
I remember thinking if we took 19 points from them I would concede Slot was turning things around and get behind him.
We ended up with 15 and have witnessed one garbage performance after another.
Not good enough.
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Think weāre all going a bit overboard here and some perspective needed. Arne has done superbly well to steady the ship, weāve come from 6 losses in 8 to being unbeaten in our last 8 - ok the performances still leave much to be desired but itās a massive turnaround for an under fire manager, we were sat 12th in the table 6 weeks ago, now we sit nicely in 4th looking up instead of down.
Letās be positive guys.
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The context is we are a team who started the season looking vulnerable every time we lost the ball. After spending the initial weeks of the season rejecting that criticism with a serious of incongruous defenses, Slot eventually tried to stem the bleeding by adopting a much more cautious approach that has given us a completely different identity as a team. The result is we have now ended the year with the worst 19 game goal scoring record since the season Rodgers was fired and giving Leeds their first away clean sheet of the season.
While no single image is ever the full picture it is at least illustrative of one of the reasons that record is soo poor - an attitude to attacking that puts a lot of responsibility on one of our forwards to create something for themselves. This chance came from Hugo nicking the ball from their CB about 30 yards out. Not a single player who was not already caught upfield at that moment made any effort to get forward and support, which in itself points to how big the gaps between the lines has become that there was such ground so many of them would have needed to make up.
This is now generally how we play now and why goals, or even quality chances, are at such a premium. If this was just something we were doing to give us a platform to get us 15-20 mins into a game without conceding and then growing from there I would understand, but we have shown precious little indication we have that sort of evolution in us. We either play like this or we throw the kitchen sink at it, neither if which is representative of what made us good last year or what Slot spent a year telling us he wanted to see from us. It is all just very confused and there is little about the way we are earning points during this recovery that suggests its any sort of platform to build from. Even more so when considering Slots somewhat incongruous defenses against those early season criticisms of us being too open - he, the man who had been preaching the need for control, pooh poohed criticisms that we were too open by saying fans come to games for entertainment.
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Whatās telling in that still is how static the other two are. No attempt at movement, simply standing up straight watching the ball.
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It really doesnāt. Hugo nips in and as soon as he does Jones and Wirtz make forward runs. Frimpong who was furthest forward also makes a run into the box. Szobo takes up position on the edge of the box, he could have charged in but with Wirtz and Jones ahead of him already itās a reasonable position for a pull back, to pick up a loose ball or to stop a counter if they win possession.
Of all our players in their half at the time Ekitike wins the ball only Gravenberch and Robbo arenāt in your shot and even then Grav ends up not too far from Szobo despite being out on the left flank when the move starts.
And all this happens in about five seconds from Ekitike nicking possession to him taking the shot.
I donāt really disagree with the general points youāre making but this is an opportunistic chance. You donāt really want people charging forward when you want to convert that turnover to a shot as quickly as you can.
The big concern for me from that phase of play is when the ball originally goes forward youāve got Virg, Robbo, Grav and Frimpong in a vertical straight line between half way and the edge of their box and ten yards in from the left touchline. If their bloke has a better touch and shifts it to their left back in acres of space, waving his arms for the ball then heās got half the pitch to charge into with only Bradley ahead of him.
Weāre debating why more players arenāt pushing forward whilst weāre so out of shape a better touch sees them counter us instead.
This is a major problem in our game. We know teams are going to employ a ālow blockā or whatever the fuck they call it so surely the best way to beat it is to have players on the move when they receive it? Actually running on to the ball. Wide players running onto it and putting in crosses our CFās and MFās can attack.
Instead everyone receiving the ball is static. I know space is at a premium. I know it wont come off 95% of the time but fuck me, do we not work on this sort of thing in training?
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With Aaron Briggs gone now, there is no one left to blameā¦
Itās not bad enough to sack Slot, and itās not good enough to say he will be here until the end of his contract. Again, for me it is a case of wait and see.
If it carries on like this, and a manager like Alonso becomes available in the summer, after growing tired of Real Madridās player power, I could see a change being made.
But there is a long time between now and then, with lots of football to be played and lots of data points still to be gathered to make the decision. (If we fall away from being able to qualify for CL football I think the axe will fall mid-season, but I donāt see that happening).
As a fan I will never tire of watching Liverpool, and even if we arenāt what we should be at the moment, I will continue to watch, with hope in my heart.
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Listened to LFC official audio commentary for the match. Steve Hunter was very annoyed with Slot not using Ngumoha earlier (I also got the feeling that he is not too thrilled about our slow football). Both he and Neil Mellor were extremely frustrated by the way we played, on top of the poor officiating.
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Talked to my mate today who was at the game and he said there was a fair level of booing at full-time which didnāt really get picked up by Sky.
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It most definitely bad enough to sack him. He is draining the life out of the team, you can see it with his tactics. Too afraid to lose the ball, must keep the ball, donāt take any risks. He has instilled fear and nervousness into the team which is making good players look terrible.
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Just some general points. I think we have to give some credit to Leeds who came with a plan to defend and restrict us and it worked to a T. You can see why they are seven games unbeaten under Farke and I was impressed with them tbh because I thought we would win convincingly. Shows what I know.
Wirtz didn;t have his best game but that was because Leeds loaded up the middle and forced us the play with width and Flo was crowded out of his preferred spaces. Again, Farke planned this and we had no answer. What was frustrating is that when Frimpong burned past his man and looked to cross there was nobody in the box to receive it. How many times recently have we seen Kerkez or Frimpers cross the ball with nary a red shirt in the middle. Why?
Hugo looked frustrated because there were not enough through balls to exploit his pace, although he did get caught offside a few times. Why didn;t we focus on getting the ball to Frimpong more often when we had their FB all ends up?
People have talked about our slow passing, but itās not the case. What is slow is our progression of the ball upfield. We opt not to take the risky pass or the speculative ball and instead just pass sideways or backwards when more through balls would encourage our forwards to make more runs. This is where we miss Trentās passing and it needs addressing because Jones simply doesn;t make forward passes and whe he does it usually is to an opponent. Heās not solely to blame because Dom is just as bad tbh.
Last thing is that this game was one where I think Mo Salah would have made a big difference. His strength, aggression and ability to make the assists could have given us more chances. More than Fede and Rio, for sure.
Oh and one more thing - we will never ever get anything from Chris Kavanagh.
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Heās still in his job. For the decision makers, the line has not been crossed to warrant sacking him.
Where is that line? I suppose thatās what the fan debate is.
My opinion is three factors are in play. First, the results. I think that if finishing in the CL spots becomes impossible, a line will be crossed. We are not there yet, and it will take a while for that to play out. Second, the performance level. This is the biggest risk for Slot, as performances have been so poor that it is sucking the life out of the place, and hope is fading. We are definitely getting less than what this group of players should reasonably be doing. The third factor in play is the availability of another candidate who is preferred over Slot. No point making a change if itās not the change you want.
For me, all those ingredients add up to a change next summerā¦ unless the team does enough in the remainder of the season to convince the decision makers that Slot should stay on. I donāt want to jump the gun as for me thereās a lot of football to be played before this comes to a conclusion.
I could see a scenario where we have enough moments to finish in the CL spots, but the performances donāt convince, and if a manager like Alonso becomes available, Slot will lose his job. But letās wait and see.
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I didnāt hear much in the upper SKD. But the silence as some of the players walked around clapping was very noticeable.
Resignation and apathy - not a good mood to have in the ground.
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