Arne Slot: Liverpool ‘could become the new West Ham’ with FSG accused of ‘knee-jerk’ decision
Arne Slot was sacked by Liverpool on Saturday with the Mailbox not in consensus over his dismissal, as concerns emerge about the direction of the club.
Send in your views on Slot’s sacking and the imminent arrival of Andoni Iraola to theeditor@football365.com…
Liverpool want to be the new Man City, they could become the new West Ham
To the Editor,
The news is out and Slot is gone. It hasn’t been a great season for Liverpool, but if you want to know whether Champions League qualification is a good enough season, ask Chelsea.
As a Liverpool fan, I wanted more out of this year, but I’m looking at the conditions faced by the manager and I’m wondering, could anyone have done any better?
This was a rebuild season. A large number of players left to pursue other options and a whole new group had to come in and bed into the team. Isak arrived without match fitness, Wirtz without the physical strength needed for the premier league. That’s two key players that needed months just to work on their fitness. Two players down would have been a struggle for any manager aiming to take a tilt at the league, but that was the least of Slot’s problems.
Would anyone have foreseen the fall-off in performances of Konate and Salah? The long term injuries to two right backs? A brilliant young centre-back out for the season after one match? The loss of Isak to a nasty tackle by “red-card per game Spurs” just as he finding his place and getting goals? The loss of Ekitike, which seems to have been at least in part due to exhaustion of never getting a break because Isak couldn’t play? The farce of a top rated defender having his transfer cancelled during his medical?
I ‘m struggling about even how to mention Jota. The loss of his talent was not replaceable, obviously, but it was more than that. Watching Andy Robertson choking back tears talking about how he struggled to play for Scotland, because he felt the loss of Jota not being able to join him at the world cup shows that it was not just Jota’s skill that was lost, the team lost someone who was clearly a lovely guy and popular with his team. I don’t know how a manager lifts his squad again after that.
Slot has had the worst hand dealt to him, maybe he could have played it better, maybe not, but I’ll take Champions League and a re-do next year without all the crises of this year.
I’m not going to claim Slot is a misunderstood genius, but here’s my concern about his sacking.
A few years ago Moyes had West Ham on the brink of the Champions League, a few bad games, a couple of unlucky refereeing calls and they just missed out. The success of the previous years convinced them that they were too good for Moyes and they sacked him, only to discover that they weren’t a great European team being held back by a poor manager, they are a Championship team that was raised far above their true position by a good manager.
Liverpool’s standard position over twenty years was fourth place and European football. We CAN be better than that, believing we are OWED better than that, is the first step on the road to being West Ham, or, god help us, Tottenham.
Barry, LFC, Chippenham.
READ: Liverpool right to sack Arne Slot and here are a full 20 reasons why
Slot had to go
The simple truth is that Slot had to go. The football was bad but he had key irredeemable qualities as a manager. The first and foremost was not trusting young players. Quansah has been so good this season he’s in the England squad; how much could Liverpool have used him. Elliott is a fearless and skillful player who has already scored big goals in big games; completely ignored under Slot. Jones was seeking an exit from the club (though I hope not anymore). Nyoni made his debut under Klopp but hasn’t been seen, Callum Wilson is an actual right back yet we played our best Centre Mid out of position instead of giving him a chance. I heard stories the academy weren’t happy and felt ignored by Slot and the way he picked teams reflected the truth in that.
I’ll always be grateful for his winning the league. And he’ll always get credit for moving Gravenberch to the base of midfield but this season showed how Slot wasn’t the right man for Liverpool. The football wasn’t worth watching anymore and that’s a pretty damning thing to say.
Are rival fans unhappy he’s gone? Yes. That’s a sure sign this is the right move.
Bring on the summer!
Minty, LFC
Enrique incoming?
Iraola seems the odds on favourite to lead my beloved LFC, which makes sense. As I have been educating myself on the man, listening to the Athletic’s 39 minutes podcast,
Here’s what I have learnt:
– Got Bournemouth at 6th even after an obliterated squad and losing Semenyo in January
– A likeable guy who people around him warm upto- style of play: mastering chaos within the game
– A supporter of his employers; never creates a stink in press conferences
– The only question: Does he possess the big club personality to handle the job that comes from managing a side that is expected to win Titles
Again, will be an interesting appointment, but the timing of the slot sacking is intriguing,
On the Champions League evening.
Maybe Enrique has been tapped up? Maybe a super confidential conversation has triggered the sacking of slot?
Here’s my wish list:
1. Luis Enrique (Would be THE perfect signing, a manager with a big club aura given access to the most lethal playmakers and finishers in the game)
2. Jurgen Klopp (Baby come back)
3. Iraola (Has premier league experience but a ridiculous comparison, so did Kerkez, will be stepping in a system where you would be playing two-three games and expected to win all or them compared to once a week game with Bournemouth)
Mihir. Mumbai. (Nobody saw the sack coming; something internal or external is the trigger, hopefully it culminates with Luis Enrique arriving and we win the treble)
READ: Liverpool: Two reasons for Slot sack U-turn revealed with FSG ‘primary objective’ for next manager
Thank you, Arne…
So I was sat in Finsbury Park when I heard the news, surrounded by lots of expectant Arsenal fans preparing for the day ahead. Slot has been given his marching orders.
Let me start by thanking him for his time at Liverpool – he moves on with no ill feeling from this end. He was the right man at the right time when he took over but the last year has crystalised the view that he wasn’t the right person to take the club forward, primarily because of the disconnect that was starting to develop with the fan base.
For me the air started to be let out of the tyre after going out to PSG in the season we won the league. Four days later we produced the limpest of performances against Newcastle who rightfully celebrated winning the league cup and the machine that had run so smoothly for the first part of the season started to splutter as we moved forward towards winning the title.
Then the summer spending spree. A desire to improve technical skills but forsaking energy and steel when doing so.
Frankly, we became far too easy to play against. We used to be the best under Klopp of winning the ball back within the first 5 seconds of losing it. The fact that we slipped to mid-table this season for that stat speaks volumes to me. The high octane energy of Liverpool without the ball is the trigger for so much within Liverpool’s DNA – never letting the opponent settle, particularly at Anfield, and being able to clinically exploit attacking situations when winning the wall back.
We were all so impressed with the understated manner in which Slot dealt with the media in his first season but we witnessed an erosion of that across the season as he started to come out with questionable excuses for drab performances (I think I can name 3 games this season where I thought we were clearly the better team – the rest of it morphed into a pile of meh…). At the start of the season I thought he was wrong to throw the new fullbacks in ahead of those already at the club and that immediately destabilised the defensive cohesion, further hindered by the midfield going off the boil, most notably Mac Alister. Frictions with Salah became quite intense and it all screamed that the players weren’t all pulling in the same direction – you don’t tend to win a lot in those circumstances.
Then the flat tyre rolled over the line in fifth place with 60 points and the developing talk was that he would hold the roll for another year, which made me let out a long sigh. But now the cloud lifts and there is the prospect and some vibrancy returning to the team and it looks as though Iraola may get the keys.
My favourite non Liverpool game from the season we won the league was when Bournemouth went away to Newcastle with virtually all of their first team missing and proceeded to play Newcastle off the park in a 4-1 win – stuff like that screams of being a well coached club.
Let’s see what happens next but I for one have a bit more of a spring in my step today … let the energy return !
Sparky, LFC. (… and if you could bring Mr Kroupi with you too !)
Headline stealers…
With the whole world waiting for the biggest match in Europe this season, the UEFA Champions League final between Arsenal and PSG, Liverpool couldn’t resist stealing the headlines by sacking Slot on this day of all days!
Honestly, couldn’t they even wait for 24 hours? No wonder they couldn’t defend their title and surrendered it by 25 points.
This is simply a knee-jerk reaction from FSG to appease their long-suffering fans who’ve witnessed an alarming fall from grace for their beloved team
Yiembe ( Mombasa, Kenya 🇰🇪)
