Arne Slot ‘undermined’ as Xabi Alonso lined up as next Liverpool manager?

It’s bad news for Liverpool manager Arne Slot that Xabi Alonso is now out of work just as the Reds are struggling.

Liverpool beat Barnsley but the scoreline was flattering. We also have mails on Man Utd, Crystal Palace and more. Send your own views to theeditor@football365.com.

 

How much is Arne Slot to blame?

Notwithstanding the green shoots of recovery spotted during the 0-0 thrashing Liverpool gave Arsenal, the noise around Slot’s job security understandably persists. As my wife won’t listen, here is my twopenneth on how Liverpool have gone from Champs to chumps quite so quickly and whether Slot is to blame. In no particular order, I came up with:

• Previously reliable key players becoming terrible (e.g. Konate, Mac Allister, Salah, Gakpo).

This would seem largely out of any manager’s control. Verdict: Not guilty.

• Too many new players to integrate. Ekitike has been the only unqualified success of the new signings, whilst Wirtz, Kerkez and Friompong have taken considerable time to settle and improve, and Isak was largely anonymous until his unfortunate injury.

Slot takes some blame here as this was an obvious challenge and he still chose to throw as many of them onto the pitch at the same time as possible during the beginning of the season. On the other hand, it was not unreasonable to expect more than one of these players to look like an actual professional footballer from the get go (e.g. Isak and Kerkez, both of whom were in the PL team of the season). Verdict: Hung jury.

• Unlike Klopp’s teams, and even last season, there no longer seems to be any discernible style of play. The team has gone through ups (first five games), downs (next five), to the most uninspiring unbeaten run of all time. It looks a lot of ETH’s United to me, where there is solely a reliance on individual moments to win games but no cohesive plan.

No one to blame here but Slot. Verdict: Guilty.

• Looking absolutely gassed after 70 minutes of walking football (although this admittedly wasn’t the case against Arsenal).

Others may be physically responsible for fitness training, but Slot is ultimately accountable for this. Verdict: Guilty.

• Unbelievably awful at both attacking and defensive set pieces.

Again, others may be responsible, but Slot accountable. Verdict: Guilty.

• Misfortune with injuries (including both Bradley and Frimpong, forcing their best player – Szoboszlai – to be played there to the detriment of the midfield), including seemingly season-ending ones to Isak, Bradley and Leoni (admittedly only just one game but, if his performance against Southampton was anything to go by, Leoni would be playing in place of Konate by now).

All team’s struggle with injuries at some point, so this isn’t a Liverpool specific factor, but there is also no legislating for such terrible luck with serious injuries which aren’t the result of over-training or the style of play (see earlier points). On the other hand, Slot has refused to play squad players (e.g. Chiesa, Endo, Ngumoha) more often to ease the burden on the remaining fit players.Verdict: Not guilty by slim majority..

• Squad left too thin in certain areas (CF, CB, LW).

As an aside, I don’t count Diaz in this. His contract was going to expire, and the club were never going to offer him a new one at 28 – hence the very clear ‘he is for sale’ messaging). However, the failure to sign Guehi (or any other CB) by leaving it too late and thus allowing the deal to unravel on deadline day without an alternative was negligence bordering on the criminal. However, this particular felony is on the recruitment team, not Slot. Verdict: Not guilty.

• Jota’s tragic death.

It is unarguable that losing a close friend or colleague will have had a material impact for some of the players and also contributed to the shortage of options upfront. Verdict: Not guilty.

It is possible to debate the extent to which each of the above have contributed to Liverpool’s downfall, but it is obvious that it isn’t all down to the manager.

Slot has made clear and consequential mistakes, but he has also been undermined by factors no manager could reasonably control (one of which most managers will go through their entire career without experiencing).

Liverpool’s collapse is not the product of a single failing but a convergence of misfortune, misjudgement, and underperformance. I therefore expect that Liverpool will continue with Slot this season unless CL qualification becomes an impossibility.

In the meantime, Liverpool fans will probably have to endure a season of transition (which is what it is, no matter what the likes of Keith Reilly would have you believe) and associated disappointment.
Matt D, London

READ: Liverpool flattered by 4-1 Barnsley score as Arne Slot justifies strong starting XI

 

But here comes Xabi…

Xabi Alonso being available I hope has triggered a lot of people’s attention in Liverpool. If the rumours are to be believed then apparently we offered him the role first but Perez told him not to move because they knew Ancelotti was off that next summer. Slot was incredible last season but this season has shown he doesn’t have the answers to whatever the question is.

A lot of people dreamed that Gerrard would one day manage Liverpool. He was our captain fantastic, boyhood fan and all round club legend. The honest truth is that he’s not up to the level we need but Alonso has some real pedigree, would command a lot of respect in the dressing room and would get the best out of Wirtz and Frimpong I suspect. Plus him and his wife lived in Liverpool before so he’ll settle quickly.

Also he might not play Cody Gakpo at every opportunity which would honestly be a breath of fresh air.

Here’s hoping…
Minty, LFC

 

Liverpool any good v Barnsley?

Liverpool won 4-1 but looked a bit average and were kind of boring. Only really pulled away with Barnsley chasing an equaliser at the end.

xG is a bit of a misnomer because they got to shoot at an open goal from 2 yards which probably had an xG of 0.95 on its own. It was sort of hilarious if we are being honest.

Nyoni barely got game time, Gakpo got a lot and showed us nothing new. His numbers are very deceptive; he plays as a forward for one of the most possession dominant teams in the league so of course he scores some goals. The reality when you watch him is pure underwhelming predictability. He is in forward positions so scores a few but a better player would be rampant there and create more space for the other attackers. Rio Ngumoha is literally impossible to tackle. He’s got frighteningly quick feet. I can’t believe Ramsay didn’t get a chance at RB given we have Bradley out injured. Stood next to VVD against a club two divisions below is a pretty low risk game to find your feet. It felt very short sighted of Slot to play Frimpong and Gomez tonight when both see a bit fragile but I think it reflects his own insecurities right now.

On current form Brighton are knocking us out next round so giving more time to the wider squad would’ve stood out to me as the key not putting more minutes into Szoboslai’s legs.
Minty, LFC

A key Liverpool question

What does Mac Allister do?
Steve

 

Wingers cutting inside and goals that live rent-free

Watching Vinícius Júnior tear in from the left and arrow one past Barcelona in what quickly descended into a gloriously unhinged El Clásico for the ages got me thinking about one of football’s most reliable pleasures: the winger scoring an unexpected glorious goal and ruining everyone’s evening.

It’s a move so uncanny, yet inevitable. Boom! The ball’s already in the net, and the crowd is levitating.

With that in mind, I tried to put together a completely subjective, wildly debatable top 10 of goals scored by wingers. No rankings, because that way lies chaos (and potential lawsuits).

In no particular order:

1. Arjen Robben vs Man United (2010, CL) – Everyone knew exactly what was coming. Everyone failed to stop it. Vintage Robben.

2. Lionel Messi vs Bayern Munich (2015, CL) – Technically not a winger, but spiritually a cheat code. Boateng is still searching for his balance.

3. Thierry Henry vs Man United (2000) – From the left, across Barthez, Premier League history made to look effortless.

4. Mohamed Salah vs Chelsea (2019) – Cuts inside, unleashes a thunderbolt, celebrates as if he’d just solved a maths problem.

5. Cristiano Ronaldo vs Porto (2009) – Started wide, ended somewhere near the stratosphere. Physics optional.

6. Riyad Mahrez vs Tottenham (2022) – Silk, swagger, and the inevitability of the left foot finding the far corner.

7. Gareth Bale vs Inter Milan (2010) – Technically not a winger, but officially began wide and unofficially ended Maicon’s career.

8. Vinícius Júnior vs Barcelona (2024) – Pace, composure, and the final twist of the knife in a truly mad Clásico.

9. Eden Hazard vs Liverpool (2018, League Cup) – Picks it up near the touchline, cuts inside everyone, scores that goal.

10. Leroy Sané vs Liverpool (2018) – Cuts in, curls one, Guardiola nods knowingly.

Naturally, this list is riddled with omissions and personal bias. No Neymar. No Ronaldinho. No young Rooney pretending to be a winger. And that, my friends, is where you all come in.

So, what have I missed? Which winger-centric goals still haunt your dreams, ruin your weekends, or live rent-free in your head?
Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (Prepared to be told this list is “fundamentally flawed” within minutes)

 

Spurs being Spurs again

December 2024 Spurs were without Vicario, van de Ven, Romero, Udogie, Maddison. By the end of the month you could add Richarlison and Solanke to that list. 18 year old Archie Gray and 34 year old Ben Davies played as centre backs and Forster in goal for eight matches until Kinsky moved was expedited.

One year on, and without Lightening Rod Levy at the helm, Spurs have no Kulusevski, Maddison, Kudus, Udogie, Richarlison, Bentancur, Bissouma, Sarr (soon to return), and Bergvall. Of those, Maddison, Kulusevski, Kudus and Bentancur will likely not feature again this season. Solanke has literally played his first 15 minutes in months.

So you’d imagine with all the talk of a new era that this wouldn’t be an issue; wrong.

Spurs have bought a 19 year old Brazilian left back.

In a sea of deranged clubs, Spurs really do take the biscuit (okay, that is West Ham but tallest dwarf and all that).
Dan Mallerman

 

What about Crystal Palace?

Doing this in the style of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

* It’s strange really, you think you’re the main story of the footballing weekend and still all anyone is talking about is Manchester United. For once, my thanks to the F365 Mailbox contributors.

* All this talk of Crystal Palace being the biggest embarrassment in FA Cup history does gloss over Manchester City not donating their share of the ticket money to a club 60 places below them.

* If there was an equivalent to blue plaques for football achievements, Palace could put one for Saturday between plaques they’d already got for “worst start to a league season by any professional club ever” and “first team to beat Liverpool three times, at three different grounds, in three different competitions, before the end of October”.

* Our main story though is that FA Cup Third Round game. In the bigger picture, Saturday was probably the latest evidence that winning the FA Cup last season, participating in the Europa Conference League and briefly threatening the Champions League places of the Premier League table, was Palace reaching their ceiling and the winless run since is them returning to where they sit most comfortably in the natural order. They are now 13th in the league, but such is the compressed nature of the table at the moment they are only five points behind Brentford in fifth. Having come through an incredibly busy period, they have just one game a week for the next five weeks, before the Conference League resumes.

* Despite the result on Saturday, and his comments before and after the match, I do have some sympathy with Oliver Glasner. It is entirely reasonable for him to expect that players from a Premier League squad would have enough footballing ability and nous to beat a team from Step 2 of non-league without needing a comprehensive pre-match plan or constant micro-management. It’s also reasonable for him to expect players with aspirations of starting in the Premier League to show they are worthy of it by dominating theoretically inferior opposition. And once the players go onto the field, it’s up to them to get the job done, and quite plainly, that didn’t happen.

However, that’s where my sympathy ends. He clearly underestimated what non-league football is like. At the risk of sounding like Martin Keown, Macclesfield looked like a team of men prepared for a physical contest whereas too many of Palace’s players looked like callow schoolboys, and not just the ones who are still school-aged.

* As expected, discussion of Palace after the event focused on the lack of depth in the squad but Glasner’s complaints on this front do ring a little hollow. The worst performers on Sunday, or at least those whose ineptitude caught the eye, were players who joined under his watch: Borne Sosa, who was caught out of position too often; Walter Benitez, too easily beaten for both goals; Jaydee Canvot, whose early head clash clearly rattled him to the point he shied away from physicality and was eased out of position for the first goal; and Christantus Uche, who couldn’t stay onside, couldn’t stay on his feet and couldn’t take his chances.

And here’s where things get complicated. To keep Glasner happy, and if we’re really honest, to make a top half finish more likely, Palace have to spend the sort of money on squad players they have previously only spent on guaranteed starters. However, he is not a manager given to squad rotation.

Since he was appointed Wolfsburg manager, and through his time at Eintracht Frankfurt, he’s operated with a very settled starting lineup and the same few trusted substitutes – an average of 10.5 players have started at least 50% of games, with reserves restricted to an average of 363 minutes (a little over four full games) of playing time. These last two seasons, it’s intensified more: 11 players last year and 10 this year have played in at least 80% of Palace’s Premier League games, which is actually the same as Liverpool. The difference is, where Palace have had seven players start more than 80% of games this year and last, Liverpool have six this year and just three last year, when being able to keep their best players relatively fresh was a huge part of how they won the league so easily.

Unfortunately for Glasner, for Crystal Palace and for the fans, it makes recruitment difficult: for players of the calibre the club needs, it’s a question of being prepared to give up a guaranteed starting place somewhere else for the opportunity to be competition for Jean-Philippe Mateta, or to sit on the bench and wait for Marc Guehi or Adam Wharton to be sold to get your chance to play. And all of this in a World Cup year, when playing regularly gives you the best chance of international selection. For the club, it’s understandable that they don’t want to pay starter prices for reserve or rotation players.

Whether or not he gets new recruits, if Glasner wants the opportunity to manager higher up the food chain, such as at Manchester United, he will need to prove to the owners he is capable of rotating a squad and still getting results, not just relying on a relatively small core group of players.

It’s never dull for very long when you support Palace, I promise you.
Ed Quoththeraven

 

Bring back the caretaker

I agree with Eoin regarding terminology. Bring back the caretaker player/manager and the man for the man ure pile is Sir Danny of Wellbeck. Goals, DNA – I should not even be the one to suggest this because I don’t actually want them to succeed but come on: two birds, one stone.

Take her handy folks!
PB IRE

 

One Mailbox regular must be in dreamland

Hey Badwolf, you must be on cloud nine popping champagne corks like it’s going out of style!

Four at the back, your love child Mainoo starting, and young Lacey getting educational minutes. It’s all gone swimmingly hasn’t it!

I look forward to your future analysis of the team and wisdom on how it should be done.
Jimmy D (Sorry buddy but I couldn’t resist! Haha)

READ: Mainoo, Bruno, Sesko among five positives from Fletcher’s two-game Man Utd reign

 

Agent Wilcox, is it?

“Nobody does this to Kenny Dalglish”. When Kenny said this to Roy Keane 1993 after Sir Fergie ‘stole’ him from under his nose, who’d have guessed he was talking about Manchester United and not the player? Fast forward 30+ years and one of Dalglish’s Blackburn players is bringing down the club from within.
DF

 

Getting arsey about Martinelli

To the snidey RHT/TS x and others on social media yesterday claiming Martinelli had ‘found his level’, he has 5 goals in 5 games in the Champions League including scoring against Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid. So is it mid-to-lower Championship teams or is it Europe’s elite?

Also, it was funny yesterday seeing the same Man United fans that were utterly indignant about Martinelli’s actions against Bradley (dropping the ball on him and apologising, pushing him back when Bradley moved) then having a go at Simon Hooper for having the temerity to apply the rules in sending off Lacey because he ‘showed some passion’ (petulance).

Martinelli’s crime was exactly the same as Lacey’s when you look at it objectively – both thought they were being wronged (Martinelli thought Bradley was time wasting because, and let’s be clear, HE DIDN’T SEE BRADLEY GO DOWN. Lacey thought he should have had a throw in) and both were booked for their petulant reactions. But one is a ‘disgrace’ (some of the ex-pros reactions have been incredible by the way – Keane and Pennant in particular living in some very fragile glass houses) and the other is hard done by and shouldn’t be held to the same rules as everyone else. Maybe THAT’S the famous Man United DNA we’ve heard so much about lately….
Stewart

…Hey RHT/TS. Haaland didn’t score in his half at all against Exeter. So he’s presumably not quite found his level yet?
John

 

VAR needs shackled

I’m not a big fan or the FA Cup and I don’t buy into the whole ‘magic of the cup’ spiel, but one thing this weekend has reenforced is that I absolutely hate VAR. It really has ruined the game. Every goal that was scored I found out basically instantaneously whether the goal had been given or not and was able to celebrate or commiserate properly without the ‘but wait until the tv shows the replays before I can actually lose my sh*t’.

The few times when the team you support gets a wrong decision overturned that benefits your team or the teams you hate gets a wrong decision overturned that negatively affects them just aren’t worth it. Those scenarios aren’t numerous enough to make up for what has been lost from the show that is football entertainment.

So that the PGMOL doesn’t completely win (they’re completely against technology because it threatens there cushy jobs in the long term), I think VAR should be kept for possible red card and penalty checks. There is absolutely no way it should be involved in whether a goal is given or not. That means no offsides and no fouls in the build up to the goal. If the on-field ref or linesmen don’t see it, then tough, the goal is given.

That being said, if they implement fully automated offside checks, then they can bring that in, but it has to be instantaneous like the goal line check. They can wear a watch on each wrist; they have two after all. With developments in AI, this technology should be easy to develop and shouldn’t take long to commission and test for use next season. Keep VAR, but keep it out of the most entertaining part of the game and really the whole reason people tune in: goals!
Seamus, Sweden