‘Bottle jobs’ Liverpool are ‘reverting to the mean’ in usual post-Christmas slump

Editor F365
Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister
Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister

Liverpool were poor against Nottingham Forest and nobody is predicting that they are runaway Premier League winners.

Send your thoughts on the title race and more to theeditor@football365.com

Liverpool are not champions elect
I am not a prophet. I do not subscribe to predictive AI models.

But am I the only one who can see this coming a mile away? Let’s award Liverpool the title in Dec? My, how the football gods laughed.

Liverpool’s runaway, amazingly insurmountable total after 20 games? 47 points. Last season? 45 points. So, a grand 2 points better.

Arsenal? 40 points in both seasons. Like it or not, Spanish Pulis can go on a lucky run.

Normally, post Christmas, Liverpool fall off. The signs are already here.

Gone are Slot’s control of games, least goals against (remember that?), clean sheets and consecutive wins. We allowed United (United!!!), Forest, Newcastle, Fulham to score first, and rescue draws. That’s not a blip, that’s a pattern.

We are reverting to mean; the 3rd or 4th best team, due to no investment. AGAIN.

New window, we are still getting trumped by everyone. Chelsea is looking at Tels after spending a billion and have 85 players, Arsenal signs Zubimendi post 750 mil big’uns, City already have 3 new players through the door, 115 be damned.

Liverpool, well we have the academy, don’t we? Matip replaced by a kid, Robbo coming apart before our eyes, Salah can only be good for half a season while Jota gives new meaning to having a hospital pass.

For a global club with so much heritage and trophies, we sure suck when it comes to owners. There was Gillett and Hicks, now we have ‘Alf-Ass Gee. We won all those trophies and the PL and Champions League without any investment, can you imagine if we have a modicum of financial support?

This is another wasted season, like the two ‘1-point short’ seasons. Or the 2 Champions League Finals we lost. We have to rely on over-performance and intelligent tactics, season after season, while our immediate rivals get showered with cash and gifts.

The time for new owners is now, more than ever.
Vinnie Pee (F-Off FSG)

READ: Sloppy Salah crying out for a rest more than a new contract…

 

…Are we all bottle jobs now? Given the rate teams at the top are dropping points, a 6 point lead has rarely felt so insecure.

No team being amazing, and few being completely toilet, makes for an interesting league.
Aidan, Lfc (Hoping Spurs do their unexpectedly great performance thing on Weds)

 

Where is the flair?
This has been one of our worst performances particularly up front. Diaz is not Bobby so we should stop using him like he is. Salah seems to have gone on his annual Jan/Feb holiday again and as a result we can’t score.

Fair play to forest this is how they played earlier in this season. It’s how they’ve played the whole time. Games like this cry out for individuality like Ronaldinho for example to shimmy his way through tight defences or when defences sit deep like this it’s exactly the kind of space just outside the box that Gerrard would sit in to fire a 25 yard screamer. Sadly these kinds of players have been replaced with ones which strictly adhere to the robotic machinations of patterned play.

Honestly I don’t think money, var or referees have ruined football..the incessant need to turn it into a repeatable science has. Creative players just get ground down into journey men who run a lot. Maybe it’s just me but flair is (or already has) slowly dying.
Lee

 

Where was the penalty?
Great match that, what a watch. Forest are a proper side, Elanga and their back line are so, so good.

Still, can’t help but feel miffed that Salah never won that pen. Two defenders slamming into him in the box without winning the ball and bringing him down. How on earth isn’t that a foul?

Probably great for neutrals though. And it’ll be funny if it gives Arsenal some hope LOL.
Seamus

 

Unpredictable enough for you, Johnny?
Since Nottingham Forest is currently in second place, I wonder if Johnny Nic still believes the Premier League is disguising itself as a competitive league.
Gaptoothfreak87, Man Utd, Somewhere on Earth

 

Why we don’t like Arteta
Lewis, Busby Way had it right in re: Arteta. I’ve been explaining to my Arsenal-supporting friends for years that I don’t hate their club, I just despise their manager for the whining tosser he insists on being and want to see him lose.

On balance, I would agree with Gunners who want to keep him; he’s clearly not a bad manager, he only makes your club look bad during pressers. On the other hand, I suppose I can understand why other supporters think he’s taken the team as far as he can. I suppose I don’t come down on the Arteta-out side because I have very different expectations for my club.

I don’t demand perennial – or even frequent – success from my side. I can’t, because I’ve literally never even seen it. (Only a jackass would count the Intertoto Cup as success.) All I expect from my club is that they compete with pride and effort each season. I need them to win one major trophy fairly soon – preferably the League, but any would do – and then I’d be happy to see them in and around the European places in perpetuity. The occasional trophy as my life draws to an end would be gravy, but I’ll watch and love Newcastle United regardless.

So it’s hard for me to relate to the fury of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool supporters who go a few years without a trophy. My mum would call it spoiled.
Chris C, Toon Army DC

 

Has Arteta been set up to be the heel?
In response to Lewis calling Arteta an insufferable c**t and him wanting to fail, I think there is an added element to Arteta that should be mentioned – the media love of creating a personality and in particular creating a heel, for engagement.

Now, Arteta is undeniably an intense weirdo, basically a prerequisite for a top level manager. He can be prickly with media, evasive and clearly post-games calls out things he doesn’t like.

But if you watch full interviews with him, he’s a funny, erudite man, who will break down games, talk about tactics and mostly be quite charismatic.

It’s clear he goes out to bat for his team continuously, protects his players to a fault and is more than happy to deflect onto himself/carry the weight of criticism. This is a cornerstone of why many Arsenal fans really like him.

Are all the weird motivational things weird? Absolutely. But you go back 10 years and managers were doing insane things to motivate players – go back 30 years and they were borderline assaulting them. Calling a dog Win and playing YNWA in the dressing room is entirely harmless. 100% other coaches are trying similar things, but because of one documentary that is clipped incessantly and continuous coverage of Arsenal as the grist to the mill, he’s all people talk about.

His players absolutely adore him (ok, Auba got angry with being frozen out, but Arteta set his rules to transform an ill-disciplined team and you can’t argue with how/why that happened). So likely not a bad bloke.

But the Premier League is at an all time shortage of box office managers. Actually good ones, maybe it’s the most talent crop ever, but with Klopp going, no Mourinho, Pep in a weird hermit mode and charisma vacuums at Chelsea, United (until Amorim) and to a point Liverpool (Slot is just very chill, not a slight on him per se) you have Ange ‘mate mating’ and then a middle tier of quietly spoken tacticians (Silva, Iraola).

So Arteta gets the prominence and we get a multi-year focus on him spending time outside his box when every manager does it. Celebrating winning, when every manager does it. Intense focus on his comments, when every manager says the same things/complains. Additional punishment from the PGMOL, for his status, on his suspension. Things like the balls for the Carabao being taken entirely out of context (he was asked why the team was shooting so wayward, he said they hadn’t done enough work in training with the different ball (accepting responsibility), was asked to elaborate, did, and then every paper (and even the BBC) paints it as him complaining that’s why Arsenal lost).

The press want a bad guy, so they’ll highlight his more idiosyncratic behaviour, combine it with general ‘dark arts’ narratives (as if Arsenal invented boxing out keepers at corners in 2023) and give everyone someone to hate and get all those lovely clicks/advertising.

It’s a bit mad this level of activity earns him the ‘love to hate’ title compared to ‘greats’ of the past (he’s hardly out there dragging opposition managers, insulting players/fans or throwing his players under the bus) but here we are.

No-one who can tell you who to like, and I’m certain I directed dislike to managers in the past who might not have deserved it, but you have got to ask yourself, why exactly do you hate him? What exactly does he do and are you sure that it’s unique? Are you reading the whole article or just the tabloid headline?

I mean, or you’re a United fan ofc.
Tom, Leyton

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The point about Arteta spending
I feel like people trying to counter the Arteta spending argument are missing the point when comparing to other teams.

Yes, Chelsea, Spurs and United have spent similar/more amounts in that time but that spending has been across multiple managers which naturally leads to a mis-mash squad (five (!!!) permanent managers in Chelsea’s case). Arteta has spent this money to build the squad he wants over 4 full seasons and so there are a lot less excuses than some of the other clubs mentioned (although they also get pelters for shoddy transfer business).

Ironically, Cuzalino points out the only two comparably clubs for management consistency are Klopp and Pep who have both spent less than Arteta and achieved a lot more…
Clarky (Spurs – would love to see a manager stay long enough to spend 700m)

 

We’re going to need a bigger treatment table
I’ve used a complex AI model to do statistical analysis of the mailbox over the last couple of years, and it turns out that every team in the Premier League simultaneously had the worst injury crisis last season/is having the worst injury crisis this season. I hope that settles the matter.
Iain, Sunderland