That’s in hindsight because we had a bad week. These results could have happened even if we would have rotated week in and out. There’s no guarantee that the squad would have been fresh and win the two games this week. On the contrary we might have lost quite a number of points in league given our rotation who knows.
We saw how Eliott and so many of our squad players sucked in the Plymouth game and how the squad looked absolutely disjointed given they haven’t trained together due to injuries or whatever.
Like I said, I do not deny that there could have been more rotation. But there’s no guarantee if that would have worked with the players he has that he just inherited. And we can’t be sure what factors were in play for him to not do so. If this keeps happening season after season then yes… he’s not learning from it. But, we can cut Slot some slack on this given he’s definitely overperformed in his first season in the most difficult league.
Yes and no. It’s a manager creating a rod for his own back if he’s in put himself in such a situation. The goal is to win, not to pander to some sort of ideal designed to placate a player who is surely leaving.
One of Liverpool’s biggest strengths under both Klopp and (so far) Slot has been a sense of togetherness and team spirit. If the manager starts shitting all over established agreements then morale will soon die.
Aside from this, anybody who thinks Kelleher is the reason be didn’t win yesterday must have been watching a different game.
I think the answer to the first point (if you believe the strongest team should be picked) is that manager shouldn’t make those agreements in the first place and to the second, no one has said (as far as I have read) that Kelleher was the reason we lost. It’s a discussion around principle.
I don’t understand this discussion over Kelleher starting.
He was our best player on the day and had little to do with our defeat imo of course he can not be given MOTM as the opposition scored 2 goals however all that does is mean none of our players get MOTM.
@sweeting made his point initially ahead of the game. The discussion has since then been fuelled as much by, if not more than, people supporting the position of playing Kelleher.
Singling out 1 player in a game where we were 2nd best all over the park is always a futile argument…then it’s over to the manager as to why that was the case for 85mins of the game.
Thought it was interesting seeing Liveranento up against Salah. We know Salah’s game is cutting inside onto his left rather than someone who is going to try and go outside his fullback.
It was a forced change for them but having a right footer on that side really does help nullify that threat of cutting in. Also helps in blocking those passing lanes between full back and centre back as there’s less inclination to pull right out wide.
Doesn’t help that Salah is used to having Trent or Bradley behind him to offer more threat and that option outside. A really quiet game from Mo but not a lot of help for him.
Livramento is a really good player also. I was hoping him having to shift to the left would negate his strengths going forwards but he had a lovely time playing essentially unopposed in possession all game.
This really reminds me of the ‘we should have bought more players in the Summer of 2019’ argument.
It’s really easy to make arguments about what we should have done from the luxury position of not living in the reality where that happened to see how it panned out.
We could have bought more players in 2019, and for all anyone knows the knock on could have been that we didn’t win the league.
As it stands, bad week aside, Slot has us twelve points clear with nine to go. Yes he could have rotated more, but we have absolutely no idea how that would have panned out.
I think Ali probably does better on the first goal, but it really doesn’t matter.
Kelleher has stepped in admirably and kept us in title form when Alisson wasn’t available. The way you keep such a good back up keeper at the club in the first place is you honour the agreements about which games are his.
That’s not hindsight. That’s common sense and it’s not the first time in this season that his problematic usage of the squad has been brought up. There are indeed no guarantees in football but maintaining the squad fresh and fit throughout the season maximizes the chances for silverware.
Slot has failed to do that so far. Whether or not he learns from it will have a bearing on his overall success.
The ones I have seen for example (@Sweeting and @wyld.at.hrt) are arguing on the principle of the selection, not on the performance yesterday. @sweeting in his post-match post even went out of his way to say he didn’t lay any blame on Kelleher for the result.
Bringing over into the post match thread is sufficient.
What Sweeting has said has been particularly notable and covering it with weak ‘oh I’m not blaming him’ doesn’t take away what he has already said.
What has been said has not been balanced.