Liverpool fan ‘disappointment’ at another ‘anti-climactic’ title as Arteta v Klopp continues

There is Liverpool ‘disappointment’ at another ‘low key’ title, and an Arsenal fan already excited to face Real Madrid. But the Mikel Arteta chat continues.

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Less flak, more slack
The one question Slot said he asked Klopp was what caused the tail off in performance after such a great start to the 2023/24 season.

As we watch Liverpool see out what was an intense series of games while extending their lead to 13 points, he clearly thought hard about this and learned from whatever he was told.

Slot is definitely confounding the football punditry who keep coming up with doom mongering or downplaying Liverpool’s achievements after writing them off before the season started.

The same pundits who fell over themselves to laud almost every other manager for shorter winning spells (well, except Amorim and Ten Hag.)

Perhaps this is because he isn’t as ‘big’ a character as Klopp or the team aren’t as swashbuckling as in Klopp’s heavy metal days.

He is certainly a pragmatic coach. Perhaps more like an Ancelotti in that way. Willing to change formation not just game to game but within games.

It’s hard to maintain form on four fronts – with players effectively playing two games a week every week, including International breaks. Which is why teams that aren’t normally in Europe struggle when they are. Even teams not in Europe struggle with a few extra games, the pressure of media exposure when doing well or the fact that in the second half of the season they are no longer the ‘surprise’ team.

Liverpool always seemed to have a post Christmas fumble under Klopp and while Slot experienced it a little, his more moderate style seems to be paying off now. Granted, under City’s normally relentless drive Klopp may have had more to do, but it does seem much mode controlled now.

It also seems the recent tests when Liverpool are ceding lots of possession but keeping control while still maintaining an attacking threat is Slot preparing for the knock out stages of the Champions League.

Whatever he is doing is working. FSG and Liverpool’s senior management are getting a lot of flack for the current contract situation of Van Dijk, Salah and TAA but should also be receiving kudos by having replaced a once-in-a-lifetime character like Klopp with no loss in performance.
Paul McDevitt

A disappointed Liverpool fan
After Arsenal’s latest slip, Liverpool need 5 wins and 5 draws to mathematically win the title. Realistically though, I think 4 wins and 6 defeats should be enough, as that will mean Arsenal would need 25 points from their remaining 11 games. I cant see that on current form. So the title is pretty much done as dusted for me anyway.

I must admit a tinge of disappointment though, even as a Liverpool fan. This title looks like it will be won again like the previous one with games to spare. Its a bit anti-climactic knowing that the title will be won in February already. How I wish we could have won even one of those last day titles vs Man City. While I am delighted that Liverpool will secure a 20th title, the manner in which we win it as with the last one is a bit low key.

At least the fans can celebrate this one in a proper manner though.
Shiraz, Johannesburg

READ MORE: Virgil van Dijk tops the 10 most overworked Premier League players

Offsides
Not a ‘Big 6’ club email, so apologies…

I’m genuinely intrigued to hear the views on Villa’s disallowed Watkins goal for offside against Palace. I won’t get into lines and when and where they’re drawn – let’s just assume that’s done correctly. I will of course give a nod to my bias too. Although I did say similar things after the 3-3 between Villa and Liverpool last season, when I think two Liverpool goals should have counted.

I just won’t ever think that Watkins was offside there. Watch it on MoTD. It just really irks me – and I’d say the same if Palace had one disallowed in similar circumstances. It’s not just ‘close’, it’s just not offside for me. Everyone else happy with it though? I’ll shut up if so.
Gary AVFC, Oxford

Arsenal v Real Madrid?
I think Arsenal’s injury problems up front have made this a really interesting prospect (providing they beat PSV).

Arsenal have been so pressured recently to win every game that it could be the first match for a while that Arteta can play the under dog. And it will be fascinating to see how he approaches it. May actually suit him as a manager.

To me (and prepared to be shot down) Arsenal have the best defense (personal wise at least) around and it’s not much of a stretch to say Real Madrid have the best forwards.

We don’t get as many interesting style match ups these days as things have moved homogenously towards a (now post?) Pep style.
I’m a neutral so can’t wait for this one. Lots of skill, last ditch defending and shit-housery.
James, Wales.

Comparing Arteta to Klopp
Christ, Klopp and Arteta, Lee, do we have to do this now? I appreciate it must be getting pretty tiring to not even be getting plaudits in your own season without everyone deciding they have to constantly call back to Arsenal at the same time, but we’re in the same boat here – we’d rather no-one mentioned us either right now.

You are allowed to just enjoy it you know? Slot’s fortune doesn’t diminish his success.

Do you want me to say Klopp is/was a better manager that Arteta? Because, and let me surprise you here, I have no issues saying he is. Bringing ten Hag in is nonsense of course and completely undermines anything credible you say, but whatever.

Let’s be clear though, Liverpool’s meteoric rise under Klopp is not some plucky underdog story. It was a) as expensive as Arsenal’s and b) as much immense fortune (combined with coaching excellence) as you will get in the history of the Premier League.

Ok, let’s start with expensive. Now, we’re going to use gross spend here as net spend is for chumps (not everyone gets to be in the right place and time to mug off a delusional Barcelona £142m for Coutinho) and use club’s gross spend as a % of total league spend (a whole new metric that will be all the rage on the streets soon) as a proxy for how relatively expensive your business was against the competition.

We’re going to take the first 4 years to represent Liverpool’s squad build and same for Arteta.

Liverpool 2015-2018 spend: 560m euros
Arsenal 2019-24 spend: 670m euros

League spend 2015-2018: 7bn euros
League spend 2019-23: 9.4m euros

It is in fact incredibly close! Liverpool over that time had 8% of market spend, and Arsenal had 7%. So yeh, you weren’t bargain hunting, you were actually spending, for the time, more than we have against the competition to drive your rise.

Then we talk about luck. Now, I appreciate this is controversial as some people would say ‘nah mate, it’s great scouting’ but come on, no-one watched Salah at Roma and said ‘he will play all the games and score all the goals for the next 10 years’.

Robertson, Salah, Mane, Wijnaldum I think you can comfortably say all performed a multiple times of their transfer value and offered for Klopp’s golden era exceptional value over what would have been predicted. Was this down to his coaching? Partially and maybe even mostly, but probably not! In the same way I wouldn’t say Saka, Odegaard or Saliba’s brilliance is simply down to Arteta.

You then got that aforementioned ludicrous windfall for Coutinho and bought the most expensive defender and goalkeeper in the world! Who then turned out to be the best defender and goalkeeper in the world! Lucky lucky.

And all of them had, with a couple of notable exceptions, really very good availability in this golden era (in Salah’s case, almost superhumanly so). Specifically on those notable exceptions, Liverpool’s success pretty much tracked that availability (which again, is totally ok – having world class players available unsurprisingly tracks with success, there’s a reason the adage ‘the best ability is availability’ is one of the biggest truisms in professional sports full stop).

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All the above doesn’t diminish Klopp though – luck/fortune is a massive part of what turns a nearly team into a dynasty – United’s 99 treble winning season could have been nothing for a few penalties and last minute goals. Liverpool deserve credit for being on the best teams in PL history in that run of seasons (I happily rate them over a lot of title winning teams even when they came second to City) and I would have no issue placing Klopp as a tactician/man manager above all Arsenal managers of my lifetime.

For Arsenal in our 4 year window, we know we’ve paid big money for everyone, but in a superheated transfer environment where the blue mouthbreathers across the city are cribbing our scouting notes, the Brighton/Bournmouth/Brentfords of the world are hoovering up the good developmental talent and even relegation teams are demanding £40m to let go of their players. Oh, and Pep is still around and Klopp too.

Now in that time, Arsenal similarly have become a very proficient team. Arteta’s 100th win was only 10 games behind Klopp’s. We’ve had a really good strike rate for signings and although we weren’t able to convert our first season back in the CL to as much success as Klopp did, we hadn’t been able to sign a 44 goal forward that summer.

Really, the inflection point of Klopp and Arteta has come this season – where Liverpool pushed on to get CL/PL in back to back years on banner seasons for all the aforementioned stars who were all available for massive moments, we’re going to go out with a whimper with all our best players unavailable.

Yeh we’re upset, yes this can increasingly be landed at a club who didn’t do enough this January and likely the summer before. How much of this is Arteta’s fault? Definitely some degree and this summer Arsenal fans will have questions for everyone and even Arteta will be demanding a lot of the club hierarchy.

But underperforming? Compared to the two best managers in the PL of the last 10 years (and some of the best all time)? Sure. But two second place finishes in two years and maybe a third if we can limp over the line? No-one else has come close.
Tom (incidentally, when did net spend become narrative de jour and not just a crutch for/stick to beat excuse makers – which always included Wenger’s Arsenal fwiw) Leyton

On famous Liverpool supporter, Dave Tickner
I’ve been reading F365 for well over 20 years now, and have never read a more blatantly biased writer on these pages than Dave Tickner is for Liverpool.

I know many football fans see alleged bias everywhere, but when it occurs to you that an article seems pretty heavily weighted, so much so that you check the byline, and keep an eye out for bias in his future articles and never seem to fail to find examples of it, I think this time it might actually be on the money.

Liverpool are indeed having a good season, while many others are falling to bits at times, but when he writes about Liverpool it seems he’s trying and failing to avoid gloating. There is undisguised glee in it. Similarly, while Man United are undeniably having a historically poor season, he never misses a chance to kick them when they’re down, diminish even small achievements, and just outwardly laugh at them. The Sack Race article never fails to mention that sacking Amorim would be ‘very funny’ and even today’s W&L describes their potential relegation as the ‘funniest thing ever.’ Sections on Fulham and Brighton open with just another chance to trumpet Liverpool. For those not cheering on the Reds, it’s incredibly fckn tiresome.

The greatest strength of F365 over the years has always been the writers’ ability to write intelligently and objectively about all Premier League teams and many in Europe too, with relevant stats and details accompanied by a fair description of the unquantifiable feelings around each club. As much thought goes into describing teams regardless of size or fanbase – the big teams might get more coverage, but the small teams are still covered well and respectfully. Certainly rivalry doesn’t come into it. There’s a relevance here of Amorim’s comment about United being “a big club but a small team” at present, but I don’t remember seeing any team taking such a gleeful kicking so regularly, and Liverpool never copped it so badly during their 30-year titleless wilderness years. United might be shit right now, but Tickner just sounds like as graceless a winner as Klopp was a bad loser.

Anyway, it’s reached the point where I’ll just be avoiding articles with his name on the byline. He might need reminding that’s he’s writing for what’s historically been an objective website, and not some Kopite fanzine.
Alistair Gilmour, Glasgow

Hi there,

I was interested to see Dave Tickner, in Winners and Losers, describe Mo Salah’s assist for Diaz against Newcastle as ‘defying the laws of physics’. Given that it was a sphere curving in the direction of imparted spin, where exactly is the defiance? If anything, it was sucking up to the laws of physics. Brown-nosing them and telling them they’re the best laws and no other laws can come close.

Anyway, have a good one.
Ben, St Albans.