It’s Slot’s fault for playing them. Especially Konate, who looks very much like a player going through the motions so he doesn’t spoil his big move.
I suspect Konate would look less like that if Slot didn’t set our defence up to fail.
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Slot out….no you are wrong. It still sounds like the right thing to say.
FSG are not stupid, they have a business to run and unless they believe this shitshow is temporary (it’s not) then they will act
My feelings are that that Arne got away with it last year by adding his coaching style to an already great squad and he actually made some play better. This year the squad change is huge (too big actually) and he doesn’t have the skill Jürgen had to integrate them gradually whilst keeping the system intact….and of course the motivation.
No hugs or fist pumps no passion…
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This would be a worry, i.e. if they did not. It would mean that senior who have been there done that and got the badges, are “riding it out to the next cycle”. I cannot believe that is the case. The players are all in a “well we’re all really good, why are we loosing” fog.
The management team needs to step up.
So Slot is telling Konate to lazily flap at his individual battles and pull out of challenges? Let’s not forget the corner they scored the first from came about because Konate put the ball out under no pressure.
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I stopped watching that dross at the 66th minute, and it seems that I didn’t miss much. Shame.
Slot is leaving us open to the counter. He’s also setting us up poorly on set pieces. He’s allowing Gravenberch to go and try to score goals because his dad told him to shoot more instead of sitting in front of the defence (I’m joking, but also maybe not).
If you leave your defenders exposed constantly they have to be exceptional all the time. Konate is playing poorly but he’s also being hung out to dry by the manager.
It’s convenient to blame Konate because he wants to leave, but it’s mostly on Slot.
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I think he, along with a few here, believed the hype after 5 wins in a row, even though the performances have been sketchy for a very long time.
It’s pointless saying we dropped off when we had already won the league.
The bottom line is that even after winning the league we still had a cup final, so getting into a shitty we won the league mindset has been devastating and we are still suffering from it.
Isak, has been a horrible purchase at this stage he should NOT be starting. Hugo should be the first name on that forward line, even before Mo.
Having our best midfielder constantly play right back is embarrassing management. You have had options for this position rather than play Dom there. Maybe 1 game you can be excused, but what is it now, 5 games or more?
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Konate is struggling against the bigger attackers as he can’t bully them, in fact the opposite is happening.
However, our defensive shape is poor, we need the whole team to put a shift in defensively no more passengers.
We have to stop conceeding
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Late-Nov and the 25-26 season has come down to hoping Arsenal can hold off Cheaty for the league.
Gross.
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I mentioned in the pre-match that the league and UCL fixtures from now to the 1st of Jan 2026 will determine if Slot gets an extension. The following fixtures are against teams that this team should be comfortably winning. At the minimum, there shouldn’t be any losses at all with just 1 or 2 draws being acceptable for each competition if we want to go far in the PL and the UCL.
Today, it was a well deserved defeat. A 3-0 spanking at Anfield against a team languishing in 19th place. That is very very damning…
Positives:
1.The first 10 minutes was good
Negatives:
- Slot’s insistence on the underlapping full-backs is not working when his full-backs are not exceedingly good finishers and your CF and B2B midfielders are totally marked out.
- On that same note, this caused our wingers or inside forwards ( which happens to be our strength) to start from too wide and had to beat at least 2 men to get into the box. This is a tad too much to do consistently even for a prime Salah.
- Why Ramsey or Gomez didn’t get a game at RB is a mystery given Ramsey is a natural RB, Gomez has experience at it and Szoboszlai’s energy is needed at the middle of the park? Given that Szobo’s our best player this season currently, moving him to RB is pretty insane.
- I find it very strange that our players just simply refuses to put in a strong challenge. There were many 50-50s but our players just pulls out from it so often that it might be a tactical thing…
- Set-pieces. Holy fuck, this is a whole new level of low. Offensively and defensively shit. It doesn’t help your corner takers are never the same person.
- The hail marys looks like attempt to fling shit on the wall, hoping something sticks. Slot made an unbalanced team even more unbalanced…
If the team is still in the bottom half of the table by christmas, he is never gonna get a contract extension.
Roy Hodgson got sacked mid season for leaving the club at 12th position by the new year. Slot has credit in his bank but it is running out fast.
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Make no mistake we are playing relegation football. Got beaten by a bottom three team at home
3-0 and it could have been four or five. We are conceding goals for fun. I said on here a few weeks ago that our defenders are standing so far from the attacking player they can just do what they please with the ball. Robbo is the worst culprit but they have all got into the habit now. The slow build up from the back has always been a problem for us since Jurgen’s time but we could rely on Mo or Mane etc to pull us out of the shit. Sorry to say but I think Mo reached his peak last year and is not the force he was. Slott has a huge job to do in the next few weeks if he’s going to keep his job.
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Don’t think we are quite at Slot out point yet, personally. Clearly Slot has to sort this out very quickly. We have problems all over, and you expect the manager to be able to sort one of them out…clean sheets or scoring, and go from there. Early in the season we were scoring relatively freely, albeit leaving it late.
Really disappointed in Ibou’s form. He is brilliant until he makes a mistake…then he falls apart. I know its not on a single player, and many have made mistakes, but he seems to be at the scene of the crime all too often. Generally today, we seemed bereft of ideas in the attack once we had failed to score whilst on top and Forest had something to defend. From there it was turgid.
Need a change of some sort to the tactics, and some players to step up.
CL game at home will help this week, but the league form is of particular concern. League title looks very out of reach…cant be drifting away from the CL spots. Its the bare minimum to finish there.
Mo actually did ok today. But in the second half he had two on him at all times and nobody nearby to help. They were expecting him to create something out of nothing.
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To top it off, direct trains to London cancelled, have to go via Birmingham and that train is PACKED!
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There are a lot of comments of how individuals are not invested enough. I do not buy it.
The management team has a lot of data. A LOT. Everything from fitness to mindset to (probably) how often they poo or have a sexual release. The challenge the management team has to effectively distil the info.
Chelsea have a model and they seem to be “working it” (will add, I do not advocate for the same - fast follow only works if you have deeper pockets). I’m pretty sure we have a “working model” but there is something in the wash that is not quite crystalising. The obvious places to alter the trajectory are there - and even this may already be within the strategy,
The rabbit hole and Alice…
He was under pressure though, that’s kinda what made him put it out for a corner.
Rewind 10 seconds before that, MGW is surrounded by 3 red players who all pussy out challenging for a bouncing ball, he then comes away with the ball unchallenged which allows him to play the forward pass.
Arne has made us a soft touch and his failures lie both in his team selections (or favourites) and shocking tactics (which have been found out since Feb).
Forget what Arne is or isn’t telling them to do, the message clearly isn’t getting through anyway so what are we doing here…that’s on him, the players aren’t motivated by him, that too is also on him.
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He is absolutely in control of the situation and has a simple pass back to Ali.
One thing I would like to not see this week is another player article that tells us we need to do better.
Like it’s cheap and annoying at this point.
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Possibly, but to say he “was under no pressure” is clearly false, there’s a player literally touch tight to him. Also notice how our RB is actually inside of him - the reason he found himself there in the first place is because he shirked out of a duel 10 seconds earlier which then meant Ibou had to come across, our whole set up is a fucking mess.
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