Liverpool season is ‘write-off’; Arne Slot cannot coach them out of grief

Is it as simple as Liverpool being so rotten because they are grieving Diogo Jota? There is an argument that no coach could combat that.

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com on Liverpool, Arsenal and all things in between.

Liverpool are quite obviously grieving

I’m not a Liverpool fan, but I’m pretty sure what’s happening to Liverpool right now.

I was the same age as Andy Robertson when my best friend died suddenly – Best Man at his wedding, giving his eulogy six months later. Perhaps you never truly ‘get over’ losing someone that close to you so unexpectedly, but you do come to terms with it.

I don’t know how long that took, but it certainly took years rather than a few months. And I didn’t work with him – unlike the Liverpool team with Jota.

Every day since they returned in the summer, they will have been reminded of him. Empty space in the dressing room, on the bus, on the plane. On a night out. It must be incredibly difficult.

Slot said players have to take time if they needed it but as far as I can see, none of them have. Perhaps they feel it’s what he would have wanted, perhaps they feel that it’s the best way to get through the grief. But sometimes what you think you want and need in those circumstances is the wrong thing. And I speak from experience.

This is why I’m convinced that 99% of Liverpool’s current ennui is Jota-related.

xG although an imperfect stat, is often a good rule of thumb. In every one of Liverpool’s last four losses, they’ve had a better xG than their opponent:

v PSV
2.66 v 2.21

v Forest
1.11 v 0.7

v City
1.3 v 1.69

v Palace
1.86 v 0.15

It’s individual mistakes that are costing Liverpool. Moments that are changing momentum and games. Not a single Liverpool player who played alongside Jota is performing anywhere near their best. Form has deserted them. They look heavy legged, listless, unfocused, going through the motions. Sounds and feels a lot like grief to me.

In a low scoring sport where fine margins matter, even a 5% drop off is huge. Liverpool are 20% off it. Some days they’ll be fine – great even. Others, they’re a shambles. Again, sounds a lot like grief to me.

I think fans, the club and the players probably have to accept that this whole season is write-off. You can’t coach, motivate, run, or buy your way out of grief. I don’t think the Jota situation has ever been seen anywhere in elite sport – a player in his prime dying suddenly.

I don’t know what a ‘good’ season looks like for Liverpool. Maybe it’s just the players just getting through it. Salah and Van Dijk might indeed be past it as Jamie Carragher states. But maybe they aren’t, and are just carrying a little more emotional weight at the moment than is ideal for elite sportsmen at the very highest level.
Mikey P, Cardiff

…Sincere thanks to RHT (I think?) in the mailbox recently for at least trying to see where I was coming with my previous comments on Jota and excuses, before returning to the piss-taking which I can’t begrudge him – football fans live for this kind of thing to happen to their opponents – it’s high tide at Banter Bay. Fill your boots lads.

That said, people can be cruel – this is the top comment on the BBC Sport article about the latest nail in LFC’s coffin last night:

“It’s disrespectful to even suggest Jota is an explanation for Liverpool’s form, especially after the money they’ve spent. Just stop it.”

It has 1,817 Likes compared to 265 Dislikes at the time of writing – despite seeming to say that you can buy your way out of grief?!

This is clearly the prevailing opinion, mine is in the vast minority – and it is only mentioned as a footnote in this morning’s mailbox (thanks also to Liam).

The BBC article and Will Ford’s latest (s)hit pieces on these hallowed pages follow the same narrative – the players are dying on their arses for no apparent reason, other than it being Slot’s fault for bollocksing up the transfer window and destabilising the squad. Both articles refer to Jota in passing, as a footnote, despite being perhaps the reason that is apparently not apparent? MOTD kicked off the analysis with this point as well, but then it was quickly on to highlight individual failings, back to basics, not yet a crisis, meaningless bullshizz.

Good to see the mailbox calling out Hughes and Edwards on the squad point too – that is their doing, not Slot’s. It was no coincidence that Edwards came back when Klopp left, the reverse of what happened previously – he only came back to have the full control he lost when Klopp took over and tried to buy Antony (true story). Hughes and Edwards’ prioritising vanity forwards over Guehi is the single biggest factor after Jota in Pool’s apparently terminal decline – if we had Guehi or Leoni (poor lad) Konate would be nowhere near the team – Gomez is returning from injury so couldn’t play. Slot has literally no alternative to playing conceding machines Konate and Kerkez – they are killing the team, starting with VVD.

Slot is 100% culpable too – he’s the manager after all, but is there really anything else he can do? Watching the highlights last night – the third goal – when Konate completely misses the ball, Szob turns away with his hand to his face, in Jones’s eyeline, like “wtaf is the point in even trying with this guy in the team”. Szob is the only leader on the pitch right now (VVD and Salah are done – thanks again for those bumper contracts Hughes!), and I firmly believe him reacting like that, and not running back, is the reason that Jones just stood there too.

Put that with VVD’s comedy handball and cry-baby follow up for the first (he was pulled down by the attacker causing the windmilling, not pushed, but whatever still awful from Virg), and Kerkez falling asleep for the second – and you can see that the team has become a clown show – they are in Dante’s Inferno only with infinite circles of Hell.

Binning Slot will change nothing – texting a mate after the game, it became apparent that there is no way out of this – all paths are just never-ending cycles of despair:

Sack slot – new guy comes in with grieving squad – I firmly believe things will get even worse if this happens

Sack the players – too expensive and starting from scratch, probably in the Championship (seriously – F365’s tables don’t lie)

New tactics – Slot’s done this, we start well, concede a goal and it all falls apart – that’s not tactics but something fundamental f**ked in these plays (grief). This is why he ends up trying hail mary all the attackers – his plan works, we concede, the players collapse and abandon any idea of a plan, then it’s just desperation from all concerned

Wait it out – the players keep showing every 3 days that they have no answers

The last one is the only one that won’t actively make things worse – it certainly won’t make things better – only time will do that, which we don’t have until we are out of every competition apart from the league. Maybe then the players will get the time to process Jota, so football can become more important than turning up to his funeral every 3 days.
Gofezo (the light at the end of the tunnel is a train)

Why sacking Slot is not the answer

I think Slot & Liverpool are showing at the moment how truly difficult and maybe impossible football management sometimes is.

I’m not suggesting things are going at all well and that Slot is blameless.

A lot of the transfer decisions have been odd yes – but I’m not sure any of us know how much say he specifically had in them. Only certain managers these days get that sort of say or power.

My point is that I have watched pretty much all of Liverpool’s games live – and, despite the casual viewer’s typical opinion, for quite a few of them – in fact most of them – they have controlled the games – until they haven’t. They haven’t been great – and one of the biggest problems is how to ultimately put the ball in the net, but they have controlled the games. The Forest game and last night included.

So that part of it you would say that Slot and his coaching team have done their bit. What they or no other manager can ever do is actually play the game themselves so when it comes to continuous errors what can they actually do to prevent that? It’s on the players.

Preventing a collapse once you have gone behind is another subject altogether. But if anyone has watched the games fully they will see that 9 times out of 10 this season Liverpool have had control – even the City game was fairly even until it wasn’t – though City had the better chances and a lot more of them.

So what should they do? Does getting another guy in stop the players from making mistakes? If Klopp was there would they be making less errors? You cant really say that they would. You cannot control the individuals once they are on the pitch – it is down to them. You can only hope they follow instructions and dont f*** up.

Should he go? I don’t know – the record is pretty terrible – but unless you can identify that he is the problem then no they should stick with him and let him sort it. He’ll know better than anyone what the problems are – and they may need unpopular solutions. LFC should be brave and stick with him – let him make the tough calls. If he can’t or is unable then yeah get rid. But then he was never the right guy in the first place was he if that’s the case.
Shunt, LFC (concentrating on the FA Cup now)

It’s Christmas time…

‘Having said all that, I don’t remember too many pundits, journalists, fans, mailboxes etc saying Pool had f**ked it in August’

Hi Stewart in Chicago – I did try to tell you in this very place before the season started that Wirtz was a lightweight midget who was likely to struggle in the PL, and that it was highly risky having basically a rookie manager at this level overseeing a change of personnel and approach this big and pricey might be a teeny bit risky. F365 have an archive if you want to go check for yourself.

Predictably though, the arrogance and strange need for Liverpool football club and it’s fans to never admit they get anything wrong meant I was somewhat drowned out at the time.

I was wrong about Ekitike though, I said he’d be at best as good as Nunez. He’s a vast upgrade, but he’s not allowed to play, largely because of your desperate need to dick swing and sign Isak.

Liverpool’s main issue is Salah. His devastatingly effective single trick was the main reason you’ve won anything at all under your last two managers. And it was only dumb luck that someone managed to rein in the lanky German chancer and force his signing in the first place. He’s always been an incredibly selfish player, and now you and he are both shite, that trait is even more obvious and unhelpful. When you chuck in Alisson and VVD as the second and third main reasons, it’s clear why you are providing the rest of football with the funniest start to a season in several generations.

Perhaps this will serve as a cautionary tale for your legions of wingnut fans and make them behave like normal human beings in future, but I doubt it.

4-1 though. To PSV! At Anfield!! I thought Christmas was in December! This is toooo funny 😁
RHT/TS x

READ: Top 10 mistakes, missteps and errors in Liverpool’s catastrof*ck title defence

…Apologies for the smudges on this email as it was quite difficult to write with all these tears in my eyes. Tears of laughter from Rob, LFC , NYCs email.

Firstly he seems to have missed the collective schadenfreude enjoyed by the masses at the expense of Man Utd’s exploits for the past 10+ years. Don’t worry Rob, you get used to it after the first 3 or 4 years.

Then managing to squeeze two “This Means More ©” slogans into such a short email. He must be a parody account.

And finally the PPS. “We’ll be with you all the way to the other side…. Except when you’re losing and we leave the stadium early. You’ll walk alone there lads.”

Thank you for the laughs.

To switch to the actual problems of the team, I’ve seen plenty of blame going round but one person who is only now catching some flak is Van Dijk. He is coming across as a fair weather leader. Happy to take the plaudits when the team is doing well but equally happy to throw his team mates under the bus, particularly his fellow defenders, when it’s not going well. Kerkez is not this bad of a defender, but imagine stepping up to such a large stage and understandably finding it hard to adjust and the person who should be encouraging and directing you does the opposite. No wonder he looks lost out there.

Van Dijk is lucky he has had Konate next to him to take the blame but I think last night’s performance will have really brought into focus just how bad Van Dijk has been.

I have no idea how Slot fixes this with the team he has. But I will keep enjoying it Rob.
David, Ireland

Oh get over yourselves, Arsenal fans

Oh great, we get to spend the day reading about how amazing “Set Piece FC” are after another jammy victory, while we are another day closer to death, watching Slot set fire to our club.

But congrats to Arsenal on organically growing a team of giants by only spending hundreds and hundreds of millions buying out the Basque region.
YNWA, Darren

…I read the mailbox this morning and noticed that there were 3 (I think) mails from Arsenal fans referenced Stewie.

Has he rattled a fanbase so much that instead of remarking at how good they were in completely nullifying a rampant Bayern team and genuinely putting a marker out for the rest of Europe, they’re writing into the mailbox to talk about an obvious troll?

Such a strange take from them.
Lee (Hornsey)
ps. Bad week for Euro giants beginning with B in London this week

Declan Rice was a £100m bargain

As the dust settles from the match at the Emirates, the plaudits are falling like petals, and rightly so, but something that I keep coming back to and finding myself stuck on is that no one, pretty much since he signed for Arsenal, has brought up Declan Rice’s price tag. The only comments in relation to his price tag seems to be Arsenal robbed West Ham and he’s a bargain. Insane that we are in a world where £100 million can be a bargain, but I think they’re right.

He is the most imperious midfielder Arsenal have had since Vieira IMO, striding around the pitch like a colossus, breaking up play, stitching together play, scoring world class free kicks, geeing up the players and the fans, pinging in perfect corners. How he isn’t Captain is beyond me.

I have to keep pinching myself when I look at our squad. We are a long way from the days of Squillaci, Mustafi and Chamakh. Something else I noticed while watching the game is how much he scans before he receives the ball. We’ve not had a player since Cesc who was so aware of the pitch and where players were on it. I am sure playing with Zubimendi helps too. A potential modern day Petit and Vieira if they win something.

We are, however, a long way from the end of the season too, and a lot can happen. We’ve been at this false dawn too many times already, and been burned. It seems the players are ultra focused, and unlike previous seasons where maybe we all got caught up in our own hype, now I feel there is a workman like professionalism about how they play. Whatever happens this season, I’m glad we have Mikel Arteta as a manager, and Declan et al as the squad.
John ‘Still nervous for Chelsea’ Matrix AFC

Trust the process

Come walk in these shoes for a bit…

14 games into your first full season in charge of one of the most successful teams in England. The team only has 14 points and sits 15th in the league. The vast majority of the fans and press are calling for your head. You get knocked out of the both domestic cups early and finish outside of the European positions in 8th place – this included awful defeats against Leicester, Wolves, Burnley and Everton (twice).

By some miracle, you start the next season still in charge and proceed to lose your first 3 games, conceding 9 without reply and the team languishing in 20th place. The pressure reaches boiling point, yet still no phone call from the top brass. After a mixed season, the team finishes the season 5th (Europa league spot) and trophy-less.

Over the next 3 and a bit seasons there are some strong opinions and doubts, some questionable decisions and bad results. Yet you stick to your principles and survive, nay thrive, albeit having still not won a trophy with your “own team”. The current season could be special or it could end, yet again, trophy-less. But you definitely deserve credit for building an exciting team who can at least compete for major honours.

Mikel Arteta is now the poster child for managerial patience, and should serve as a warning to anyone who is not willing to give managers enough time to develop a team and stick to the principles upon which they were hired in the first place. It was very much a bumpy ride to get to this point, and the pressure he was under at times, coupled with the derision towards him, should not be forgotten. You know the mantra, trust the process.

(Ps Jamie Carragher suggests Liverpool are different as they have never sacked a manager who has won the league. Not only is he wrong, he was still playing for Liverpool when it happened – K Dalglish in 2012).
Garey Vance, MUFC