Slot making ‘same mistake’ as Klopp at Liverpool after ‘fundamental fault’ is finally exposed
Liverpool boss Arne Slot is ‘making the same mistake’ as predecessor Jurgen Klopp at Anfield after their 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The Reds’ ‘fundamental fault’ has now been exposed as they were knocked off top spot in the Premier League by Arsenal, while a Tottenham fan reckons Thomas Frank’s side are in a ‘false position’.
Send your views to theeditor@football365.com…
Slot making the same mistake as Klopp
Slot is in a tricky position and I fear he’s making the same mistake that Klopp was guilty of by being too loyal to underperformers.
It was clear that Milner and Henderson were losing steam and a midfield with those two looked so clunky before they both moved on. Klopp stood by them both for too long and it cost Liverpool points over and over again.
This season we see Konate playing dreadfully, as well as Gakpo and Salah. I have enormous amounts of sympathy for them because they might just be out of form but equally likely they are dealing with the loss of a young team mate. That said there’s nothing wrong with Slot putting an arm around their shoulders and giving them a couple weeks off to rest their minds and bodies. Rio, Gomez and Ekitike have all done enough to justify chances to fill those positions and failing to drop players isn’t about transition it’s just bad management.
Kerkez has had a very poor start to life at Liverpool and he must’ve been quietly not too unhappy to see Robertson’s man get in to score the winner today. That said Robertson benefitted from a slow start to life at Liverpool; barely featuring before Christmas and I think it allowed him to build fitness and adjust his mindset to playing for a huge club. Again I think Slot could’ve managed this situation better.
This was always going to be a season of transition and the five wins in a row really helped to paper over some cracks. Buying up the best the rest has to offer is a great strategy that Ferguson always employed but it’s also hard for players to adjust; Newcastle had some of the lowest possession in the league and played counter attack whereas now Isak is facing low blocks every week.
Unfortunately for Slot, football is a results business and he’ll need to find a way to get a better tune out of this team. He could start by looking at the evidence and adjusting for it instead of ignoring it. Last season he always made subs to great effect. The past two league games he’s made subs that have actively made us worse whilst leaving some of our worst performers out on the pitch game after game.
Minty, LFC
Familiarity breeds contempt… but unfamiliarity breeds Liverpool’s latest implosion
They say familiarity breeds contempt — but this Liverpool team is proving that unfamiliarity breeds stoppage-time goals, wild substitutions, and existential dread.
After yesterday’s 2–1 defeat at Stamford Bridge (yes, that one — Estevao’s 95th-minute winner, Chelsea’s 8th-choice centre-backs trotting in, and Liverpool left wondering if they even had a plan), you have to wonder: did someone forget to ship the team chemistry along with the £400-plus million transfers?
Watching this lot is like tuning into a new season of Succession where half the characters changed—but the script is the same: cutthroat ambition, existential confusion, and no one quite sure who’s in charge. Mo Salah is trying to reclaim his crown, Isak is handing out assists but not quite scoring, and everyone else is jittering around as if they learned tactics five minutes before kickoff.
The defence now looks like the Game of Thrones winter guard — bones thrown in for show, weak at the core, and cracking under pressure. The midfield doesn’t connect more than once in three passes; Klopp’s ghost must be shaking his head from the sidelines.
Just look at how Slot describes things: “the more they play together, the more they will connect.” Which in ordinary language means: “I bought chemistry in segments; we’re still assembling it.”
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Unfamiliarity, it appears, breeds soft goals, bench juggling, and the kind of team performance that would lose in The Great British Bake Off’s technical challenge.
Until this team clicks, last season’s title triumph might start to feel like a fever dream rather than something that actually happened irl.
Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (Semenyo should be protected at all costs. The man is a beast.)
Six Liverpool players criticised in Chelsea mess
Kerkez, utter toss. Bradley, still a naive liability despite being a talented player who should know better. Shiny new right back, disappeared. Wirtz, dropped, and still done fuck all despite another half of football. Isak, anonymous bar a dive and an assist he knew absolutely nothing about. Konate, already mentally checked out. Salah, appallingly bad by his high standards. Ekitike, mismanaged and probably had his confidence shot to bits. Slot, looking like a rabbit in the headlights, and has opened his own Pravda franchise too judging by his post match interview. All this versus a Chelsea team with a bunch of injuries, including their best player. Really impressed with Acheampong’s performance too, especially since he’s like 12. Lovely stuff. Oh, and fair play to Ickle Mikel for starting Eze AND Odegaard, he might yet come good at elite level. Game on.
RHT/TS x
READ: Premier League signings of the season: Only one Liverpool player included, Sunderland star top
Liverpool look grim
Arne Slot’s had little to fret over in his tenure thus far, but this recent stretch will add grey to his flowy barnet. Where to begin with the myriad issues plaguing this suddenly wretched Liverpool side. It’s not just the accelerating downward spiral but the multiple abject showings at nearly every position on the pitch, and it’s all gone so very badly wrong so very quickly.
Of the small clutch of players to have had anything nearing a decent turnout for us this season, our first-choice keeper is now crocked til late November, our best attacking midfielder is continually shunted to right-back (to make way for the Germanic spanner in our works), and our promising new striker signing plays second fiddle (to our newer, less fit, misfiring striker signing who cost just that little bit more in what now looks to be a misallocation of funds, when what we really needed was to bolster a clearly shallow back line).
Everyone else, for whatever reasons justifiable or not, have been hugely subpar and disappointing. I don’t recognize the football we’ve played this season, and we now have a fortnight to sit and stew in it, a rather unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling I can’t say I’ve missed. Who knows what we look like post-interlulls but so much (too much ?) has to change.
Eric, Los Angeles CA
Dear Mailbox,
I was dubious last month when Liverpool fans were reassuring us that the late, late goals in their matches were actually a totally sustainable trend. But fair play to them, they were spot on.
Cheers,
Dan, (sarcasm is the highest form of wit that I’m capable of) Worthing
READ: 16 Conclusions on Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool: ‘Mini crisis’, Slot, Maresca, Mac Allister, Estevao, Jota
Liverpool blued, plus why have I never been published?
We’ve all seen it coming since the beginning of the season, with their late goals which their fans pretended were solely a sign of the players’ monster mentality. We knew, in our dispassionate observation, that while being able to rescue games late on speaks to an unrelenting attitude, it also masks a fundamental fault that will eventually negate no matter how many late goals you can score.
While it is clear that this fault line is most conspicuous in the Liverpool defence, most observers have wrongly identified Konate as constituting the greatest fissure. This leaves one baffled. While Konate has often made some glaring mistakes in some matches (and is naturally bumbling which makes for a less accomplished defender), he is nevertheless a brave, willing, and dedicated defender (which could explain Real Madrid’s interest in him).
What is actually baffling is the fans and pundits’ seeming blindness to Van Dijk’s mediocrity. I mean, the guy cannot defend! Watch many of their matches and all you’ll ever see is Van Dijk backing off from attackers or turning his backside at them until Konate or someone else gets their to do the real defending. And people will be singing Van Dijk’s praises! Maybe the guy is clever that way — a cleverness he shows in another guise when he skulks (yes, he gives that impression, always looking like he wants to cheat) around the opposition box during corner kicks looking to score an underserved goal.
Anyway, Van Dijk is the major fault line of the Liverpool defence, and the earlier Slot realises that the better for the team (though we pray he never realises it — as he showed against Chelsea by removing all his defenders while leaving the Dutchman on the pitch). Chelsea gave them the blues, and long may it last. I hope you footballheads at 365 will at least publish this piece, else I’ll start suspecting that you have something against this writer from God’s own country. Peace out (I’m a Man U fan and I’ll always rejoice at Liverpool’s woes).
Ade Adeolu, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria.
Viking Clogger
Dear 365,
At what point are the MAGA loons going to acknowledge that the Viking Clogger is clearly a fiasco signing almost on par with the £65m paid for the Ashtray?
“New to the league” he might be but players like e.g Ekitike already look a country mile ahead of him. His stats in big games is alarming:
0 shots on/off target, 0 chances created at Anfield
0 shots on/off target, 0 chances created at OT (😳)
0 shots on/off target, 0 chances created vs Citeh
0 shots on target, 1 off target (went out for a Newcastle throw-in), 0 chances created at St James
His only evidence of base competence came against first-match in charge Ange Forest (how are they doing?) and Leeds (relegation contenders). Both matches at home. He’s not even bothering West Ham or Olympiakos at home? £60m, £200k a week and what am I seeing, Benjamin Tesco Value is catching up to him in goal scoring terms despite playing far less minutes? Glen Murray on £15k a week would clear Viking Clogger! It was an abysmal signing and more evidence that Arteta has zero talent ID when it comes to attackers. Zero. The Ashtray will be sold at a huge discount (add in his £290k a week wages meaning nobody will sign him outside Saudi). Arsenal “would be happy” with £30m for Brazilian Balsa Wood Gabriel Jesus (a £20m+ loss and he’s on £265k a week!). And now add Gyokeres, manhandled by Arsenal reject Mavropanos. After making Konate look like Marcel Desailly the other week, Viking Cloggrr is now making Mavropanos look like Alessandro Nesta 😂😂😂
Can anyone name one attacker Arteta signed, that is now worth more than when Arteta signed them? Nor can I.
The interesting thing is here, the MAGA Loons won’t ever admit this and much like the ashtray, they will deny reality, dig in their heels and invent new, obscure stats to justify another pig’s breakfast of an attacking signing. SAD!
Stewie Griffin (After spending £1n there’ll be a bus parade for the “being top in early October” trophy I assume?! Oh and how many CEOs have texted Arteta to talk up how brilliant Gyokeres is then? 😂)
Tottenham are in a false position
Another week and another smash and grab for Thomas Frank. I’m a spurs fan and obviously want us to do well, but I really do think we’re in a false position at the moment. We have a lower xG than xGA, which ordinarily would lead us to losing more games than winning, we’re facing 7th most shots in the league, and we’ve played the bottom three sides in our first 7 games
I think many of our fans are simply happy the trophy winning Aussie has gone, and are more than content to completely ignore the context of last seasons struggles, despite several players publicly stating that they’d given up on achieving anything through the league due to how far behind we’d fallen during the crippling winter injury crisis. But the truth is, we’ve bought some very good players in the summer, but overall our play hasn’t improved a great deal. We look solid when we have Porro, Van de Ven, Romero and Udogie/Spence playing across the back, but then we did in the last two seasons.
The manager is far too risk averse and is clearly still ideologically a Brentford manager. I’m sure this mindset will change, after all it takes a long time to break a habit, and he’s been at Brentford a long time, but I can’t continue to watch Palinha AND Bentancur both starting games against teams we’re clearly better than. We have a clear ball progression issue when both play. In the Wolves game we played 8 defensively minded players out of 11. 8. Against wolves. At home. This needs to change
I saw yesterday afternoon after the Leeds game, across socials, people desperate to believe that we’ve turned a corner. “We’d have lost that game a year ago” they unironically shouted, completely forgetting just days earlier that we’d drawn a game we won last season.
He has potential to get better of course – he’s only 7 league games in – but to say he’s turned us around is premature. He’s had a full squad to work with pretty much and he’s been bought some good players, including a good screen in front of the back four. If we continue to play each game creating fewer clear chances than our opposition, it will catch up with us in the end.
Wahsnekrib THFC
