Job security - arne
- Thread starter LeTallecWiz
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This is why even with in danger of ruining Klopp's legacy, I would get him in ASAP if there was any remote chance.
I want to enjoy football again, I don't care if we lose but I miss watching us and loving the press. energy and chaos. I'm sure we can't have it back but we still have brilliant players, great setup, the constants are good, realistically the only variable we can make next is the coach. PS: Never was a big fan of the Hughes or his consutlant boss setup but that I assume will need looking at next. I want to see more your prospects coming through and not signings not focussed on big money, we used to buy 30-40m early 20 somethings and were brilliant at it. If Hughes and Edwards aren't capable of doing that then need to be looked at next.
Well... Now we know how he got three more weeks.
They want Slot to know about the meet.
teachers pet?
Only saying what I heard. When my mate said VVD, Gakpo and... I was expecting him to say Grav, cos I thought it was some weird Dutch thing. But then it was Szob. I dunno. But he wouldn't make it up.
Gakpo functions as the world's best paid chaplain. We did better when we had evangelical loonies.
He obviously did
PAUL JOYCE: Liverpool need Arne Slot to recapture his superpower for improving players
On the day Arne Slot met Liverpool for the first time to discuss becoming their new head coach, he was presented with a dossier.
It was not about the inner workings of the club of which he was earmarked to take charge, or the squad he would inherit. Rather, it was about himself.
Liverpool’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, had compiled a 60-page report on the reasons why they wanted to entice the Feyenoord manager to Anfield once Jürgen Klopp departed at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, and had it to hand when visiting the Dutchman’s home in Zwolle.
Slot had ranked highest of all the candidates Liverpool considered when using a checklist of about 20 metrics, which included a points-above-expectation model, something that Brighton & Hove Albion use to appoint coaches. He also scored highly on his ability to keep players fit.
Another model related to player improvement, and had been developed by Liverpool to assess performances before, during and after a head coach’s reign. Here, it was noted that Slot stood out like a sore thumb. It was one of his “superpowers”.
As Liverpool survey the wreckage of a season that lurches deeper into crisis with every chastening defeat, perhaps they should dust down that case study and hand it back to Slot to remind him of just what he was good at.
For amid the self-doubt that is ravaging his players, he, too, has mislaid the secrets that brought him a Premier League title in his first season at the club, and the Eredivisie crown before that with Feyenoord in 2023.
This is someone, after all, who addressed Liverpool’s defensive structure in an early group meeting at the start of his tenure, presenting the squad with data highlighting how many bodies they should have behind the ball when an opponent is in the final third.
He showed his players videos of Savinho and Phil Foden tracking back into position for Manchester City, then the team he was seeking to overthrow, and everyone seemed to buy into that philosophy.
Contrast that to the shambles now, where organisation and resilience have been abdicated. The implosion in the second half of Wednesday’s 4-1 Champions League defeat at home by PSV Eindhoven served as a stark illustration of how nothing is working as it should at Liverpool right now.
Not the head coach. Certainly not the players. Not the summer transfer dealings in and out of Anfield that were supposed to propel the club to new heights after that second league title in 35 years.
“Everyone is shell-shocked,” said one source. “The players, everyone.”
Recovery and rebuild were not in the script heading into late November and early December, and while Sunday’s visit to West Ham United, followed by back-to-back assignments with top-flight new boys Sunderland and Leeds United, once looked favourable, they are now fraught with danger for a coach who desperately needs positive results.
In many respects, City stand as an example again. This time last year, they were in the midst of an alarming run of one victory in 13 matches in all competitions, leaking goals left, right and centre.
Pep Guardiola, one of Slot’s coaching idols, found a way out of that unprecedented slump and finished third, in part by deploying the energy of Nico O’Reilly and Matheus Nunes as full backs, which made opponents retreat.
It feels timely to go over the reasons Guardiola attributed to what was a remarkable collapse. He explained that injuries meant the defence had rarely trained together since the start of the season and that the fitness of players then became a recurring issue. He pointed out how, after a couple of setbacks, mental fragility meant a group previously impervious to pressure could not “sustain” good spells in games, and added that “players are getting old and the pace that we had, we don’t have”.
Those comments will resonate with Liverpool, at present on a run of three victories in 12 matches, and especially the final point.
This malaise is no longer simply about the adaptation of the new signings (Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak have still only played 267 minutes together) but other, more established players now drained of all confidence or, worse, on a downward slope in their careers.
For arguably the first time since Virgil van Dijk signed in 2018 to help lead the club’s rebirth under Klopp, the centre back cannot solve the problems of everyone around him. Jamie Carragher, the former Liverpool defender, observed that Van Dijk now needed help himself.
Mohamed Salah’s efforts off the ball in the build-up to PSV’s second goal, when he was bypassed with ease, made for difficult viewing. Carragher rightly questioned who else is stepping up. The answer, in short, is no one barring Dominik Szoboszlai.
Slot has been desperate to keep the pressure off all of his players, but it has reached the point where he is defending them and receiving next to nothing in return.
Decisions that were put off previously now need to be embraced. Alexis Mac Allister’s struggles continue, his mobility an issue when he is not taking care in possession. Joe Gomez should play at right back.
As for Salah, well, he does not like being taken off, let alone being taken out of the team, but defeats are more damaging to a manager than a strop from a star player will ever be.
Slot has remained loyal, yet he was the first to point out that things needed to change, recognising even during Liverpool’s march to becoming champions that frailties were evident, most noticeably a lack of ruthlessness.
Bookended by January’s loss to PSV in a Champions League dead-rubber and the latest capitulation, Liverpool have won 21 and lost 17 of 42 games.
Internally, the view remains that Wirtz, Isak, Hugo Ekitike (who have all be on the pitch at the same time for just 61 minutes) and Milos Kerkez will prove themselves to be upgrades, which adds to the pressure on Slot. There is also an acceptance that there was always going to be pain due to a sense of transition exacerbated by the death of striker Diogo Jota.
But no one envisaged results being the worst for 71 years, going back to a season when they were relegated from the top flight.
Indeed, it is pertinent to wonder whether the surgery went far enough in the summer given the issues in midfield and defence that now look obvious. Liverpool recruited technical, sometimes small players right at the time long balls, set pieces and physicality became the Premier League’s hallmark.
Just as it will not have been on Liverpool’s radar to consider succession planning in the dugout, so it had not been the plan to spend in January on new signings.
They obviously like Marc Guéhi, whose proposed £35million move collapsed on deadline day when Crystal Palace could not sign a replacement, but the priority centre-back signing for the summer was Parma’s Giovanni Leoni. The 18-year-old Italian is out for the season after suffering an ACL knee injury on his debut against Southampton in the Carabao Cup.
Talks on Guéhi were initiated on August 10 when the teams met at the Community Shield before going quiet until August 30. The deal was then on and then off again.
Hughes knows Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo well from his stint as sporting director of the south coast club and will know that a release clause of £65million in January drops to nearer £50million in the summer window — hence why Bournemouth are looking to create an auction.
For now, though, there are more important issues to tackle. Slot admitted he had struggled to sleep after the PSV defeat, which is understandable given he has so much to solve.
He has openly acknowledged there will be plenty now wondering just how good he is. For now at least, Hughes and Michael Edwards, CEO of football for Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool, believe the answer still lies in that dossier.
On the day Arne Slot met Liverpool for the first time to discuss becoming their new head coach, he was presented with a dossier.
It was not about the inner workings of the club of which he was earmarked to take charge, or the squad he would inherit. Rather, it was about himself.
Liverpool’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, had compiled a 60-page report on the reasons why they wanted to entice the Feyenoord manager to Anfield once Jürgen Klopp departed at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, and had it to hand when visiting the Dutchman’s home in Zwolle.
Slot had ranked highest of all the candidates Liverpool considered when using a checklist of about 20 metrics, which included a points-above-expectation model, something that Brighton & Hove Albion use to appoint coaches. He also scored highly on his ability to keep players fit.
Another model related to player improvement, and had been developed by Liverpool to assess performances before, during and after a head coach’s reign. Here, it was noted that Slot stood out like a sore thumb. It was one of his “superpowers”.
As Liverpool survey the wreckage of a season that lurches deeper into crisis with every chastening defeat, perhaps they should dust down that case study and hand it back to Slot to remind him of just what he was good at.
For amid the self-doubt that is ravaging his players, he, too, has mislaid the secrets that brought him a Premier League title in his first season at the club, and the Eredivisie crown before that with Feyenoord in 2023.
This is someone, after all, who addressed Liverpool’s defensive structure in an early group meeting at the start of his tenure, presenting the squad with data highlighting how many bodies they should have behind the ball when an opponent is in the final third.
He showed his players videos of Savinho and Phil Foden tracking back into position for Manchester City, then the team he was seeking to overthrow, and everyone seemed to buy into that philosophy.
Contrast that to the shambles now, where organisation and resilience have been abdicated. The implosion in the second half of Wednesday’s 4-1 Champions League defeat at home by PSV Eindhoven served as a stark illustration of how nothing is working as it should at Liverpool right now.
Not the head coach. Certainly not the players. Not the summer transfer dealings in and out of Anfield that were supposed to propel the club to new heights after that second league title in 35 years.
“Everyone is shell-shocked,” said one source. “The players, everyone.”
Recovery and rebuild were not in the script heading into late November and early December, and while Sunday’s visit to West Ham United, followed by back-to-back assignments with top-flight new boys Sunderland and Leeds United, once looked favourable, they are now fraught with danger for a coach who desperately needs positive results.
In many respects, City stand as an example again. This time last year, they were in the midst of an alarming run of one victory in 13 matches in all competitions, leaking goals left, right and centre.
Pep Guardiola, one of Slot’s coaching idols, found a way out of that unprecedented slump and finished third, in part by deploying the energy of Nico O’Reilly and Matheus Nunes as full backs, which made opponents retreat.
It feels timely to go over the reasons Guardiola attributed to what was a remarkable collapse. He explained that injuries meant the defence had rarely trained together since the start of the season and that the fitness of players then became a recurring issue. He pointed out how, after a couple of setbacks, mental fragility meant a group previously impervious to pressure could not “sustain” good spells in games, and added that “players are getting old and the pace that we had, we don’t have”.
Those comments will resonate with Liverpool, at present on a run of three victories in 12 matches, and especially the final point.
This malaise is no longer simply about the adaptation of the new signings (Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak have still only played 267 minutes together) but other, more established players now drained of all confidence or, worse, on a downward slope in their careers.
For arguably the first time since Virgil van Dijk signed in 2018 to help lead the club’s rebirth under Klopp, the centre back cannot solve the problems of everyone around him. Jamie Carragher, the former Liverpool defender, observed that Van Dijk now needed help himself.
Mohamed Salah’s efforts off the ball in the build-up to PSV’s second goal, when he was bypassed with ease, made for difficult viewing. Carragher rightly questioned who else is stepping up. The answer, in short, is no one barring Dominik Szoboszlai.
Slot has been desperate to keep the pressure off all of his players, but it has reached the point where he is defending them and receiving next to nothing in return.
Decisions that were put off previously now need to be embraced. Alexis Mac Allister’s struggles continue, his mobility an issue when he is not taking care in possession. Joe Gomez should play at right back.
As for Salah, well, he does not like being taken off, let alone being taken out of the team, but defeats are more damaging to a manager than a strop from a star player will ever be.
Slot has remained loyal, yet he was the first to point out that things needed to change, recognising even during Liverpool’s march to becoming champions that frailties were evident, most noticeably a lack of ruthlessness.
Bookended by January’s loss to PSV in a Champions League dead-rubber and the latest capitulation, Liverpool have won 21 and lost 17 of 42 games.
Internally, the view remains that Wirtz, Isak, Hugo Ekitike (who have all be on the pitch at the same time for just 61 minutes) and Milos Kerkez will prove themselves to be upgrades, which adds to the pressure on Slot. There is also an acceptance that there was always going to be pain due to a sense of transition exacerbated by the death of striker Diogo Jota.
But no one envisaged results being the worst for 71 years, going back to a season when they were relegated from the top flight.
Indeed, it is pertinent to wonder whether the surgery went far enough in the summer given the issues in midfield and defence that now look obvious. Liverpool recruited technical, sometimes small players right at the time long balls, set pieces and physicality became the Premier League’s hallmark.
Just as it will not have been on Liverpool’s radar to consider succession planning in the dugout, so it had not been the plan to spend in January on new signings.
They obviously like Marc Guéhi, whose proposed £35million move collapsed on deadline day when Crystal Palace could not sign a replacement, but the priority centre-back signing for the summer was Parma’s Giovanni Leoni. The 18-year-old Italian is out for the season after suffering an ACL knee injury on his debut against Southampton in the Carabao Cup.
Talks on Guéhi were initiated on August 10 when the teams met at the Community Shield before going quiet until August 30. The deal was then on and then off again.
Hughes knows Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo well from his stint as sporting director of the south coast club and will know that a release clause of £65million in January drops to nearer £50million in the summer window — hence why Bournemouth are looking to create an auction.
For now, though, there are more important issues to tackle. Slot admitted he had struggled to sleep after the PSV defeat, which is understandable given he has so much to solve.
He has openly acknowledged there will be plenty now wondering just how good he is. For now at least, Hughes and Michael Edwards, CEO of football for Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool, believe the answer still lies in that dossier.
View: https://x.com/TimesSport/status/1994768314707353847
View: https://x.com/AnfieldEdition/status/1994827192711483486
View: https://x.com/AnfieldEdition/status/1994827731331420222
View: https://x.com/AnfieldEdition/status/1994828092893008013
View: https://x.com/AnfieldEdition/status/1994828487161778677
Empty red seats scarred Anfield, a place of which Johan Cruyff once said, “There’s not one club in the world so united with the fans.”
Supporters had gone, and so too their team’s self-assurance. Cody Gakpo drove towards PSV Eindhoven’s box, where team-mates waited and Milos Kerkez provided the supporting run on cue. Yet, inexplicably, Gakpo passed back, left it short — an interception and 14 seconds later, PSV were putting another goal in Giorgi Mamardashvili’s net to make it 4-1. For the first time in 72 years, Liverpool had lost three consecutive games by three goals or more.
When Arne Slot faced the cameras afterwards, however, he was still himself: rational and composed. “The only way is to go through now,” he said — words that chimed for those who know Liverpool’s hierarchy.
“The best way out is always through,” is a line about resilience by the great American poet Robert Frost, beloved by Mike Gordon, the president of Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool’s owner. The club’s chief executive of football, Michael Edwards, quotes it too.
For Slot to reach for it in his dark hour showed how the head coach, and his bosses, remain on the same page.
Liverpool’s bad run is so severe — their worst since 1954 — the statistics are numbing. Since May they’ve conceded more goals in Europe’s big five leagues than any side except Wolverhampton Wanderers. Alexander Isak is the first player whose first four Liverpool starts ended in defeat since 1906. And so on.
Yet some counter-numbers: only 64 days and 12 games ago, Liverpool were top of the Premier League and Slot’s win record at the club was better than Pep Guardiola’s across his Manchester City career. Slot won the title last year. Is our world really on such fast-forward he could be written off so soon?
Another favourite Edwards saying is “results are noisy”. He helped build the modern Liverpool (in his previous role as sporting director) by investing long term in a manager (Jürgen Klopp who, remember, needed four years to win a trophy) and taking the long view when recruiting players. Nothing has changed.
Humblings like the one inflicted by PSV hurt, but there is internal calm about Slot’s recent travails. Performances have been better than results and there is recognition that Slot is dealing with a “perfect storm” of complex issues caused by everything from the loss of Diogo Jota to a temporary (it’s felt) shift in how football is played. Where will Liverpool finish? Anywhere from first to fifth is one senior figure’s view.
Slot’s office at the AXA Training Centre is next to that of the present sporting director, Richard Hughes, and they talk daily, Hughes having been a sounding board for Slot throughout his 18 months at Liverpool. Relations between Slot and Edwards are also unchanged.
Edwards prefers to be one step removed, rarely attending Anfield (he watches games on a big screen in his basement at home, often while walking on a treadmill) and visiting the training ground once or twice a month. He and Slot spoke for 45 minutes last week. Patience is his guiding principle, Gordon’s too.
The belief in Slot is logical, evidential. He is seen as exactly the same person who, only seven months ago, brought Liverpool their second league title in 35 years and the now-famous 60-page dossier Hughes compiled on Slot when appointing him as Klopp’s successor outlined three “backbones” of his management.
He was a developer of players, his teams overperformed and at Feyenoord — who averaged ten signings and ten departures per season during his tenure — proved skilled at maintaining success while managing change.
This last point is hugely significant. Liverpool’s biggest issue of all is being in a period of squad transition. Usually it happens at the start of a manager’s tenure and allowances are made. The difficulty for Slot is achieving success first with an inherited team: it created unrealistic expectations, especially when Liverpool added £450million of new players to it over a record-breaking summer.
Yet a transition is a transition. The nucleus of Klopp’s great side lasted a remarkable span together but it was clear, when Edwards and Hughes assumed their present roles in early 2024, a rebuild was on the horizon. They waited initially (signing only Federico Chiesa last season) to assess the market and the squad but knowing churn was coming was among the motivations for hiring Slot. His record of managing throughout upheaval is a reason for retaining confidence now.
Liverpool’s seven summer signings and ten departures was actually less than Arsenal’s activity (eight signings, 11 departures), but at a club whose recruitment is measured it was recognised as unprecedented; “three windows in one”. Accordingly, a disruption on the pitch was expected and is being allowed for. Isak (£125million) Florian Wirtz (£100 million), Hugo Ekitike (£69million) and Kerkez (£40million) were signed on five- or six-year deals and the idea is they’ll be the bedrock of a new team — which should be judged not now but over that time-span — just as Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson and Alisson arrived from 2017-18 to begin a journey towards success over the seven years that followed.
Yet one of the main complications for Slot has been Isak. A transfer wrangle with Newcastle United meant the 26-year-old only arrived at the end of the window, having missed most of pre-season, and even before that was not in prime shape — completing 90 minutes only three times from mid-February in the 2024-25 campaign. Liverpool knew he was an investment who would need time.
The strategy behind signing him was that Salah, 33, could not go on forever. Liverpool were delighted, in April, to renew the Egyptian’s contract for two years but that merely provided breathing space to begin shifting the team towards a new method of scoring and winning matches. Salah, on the right, was incomparable, irreplaceable — and so the decision was taken early on to realign things around an elite striker.
Isak — who Liverpool would have signed in January, had Newcastle been willing — was a coup; available and one of the top five No9s in the world. “The reality is it’s normally your centre forward who scores goals. That’s how it was 100 years ago, and that’s how it will be 100 years from now,” is the Liverpool explanation for their new strategy.
But Isak, who injured his groin in October just as he was finally nearing proper fitness, is still finding his way physically and it’s the same with Wirtz. His last two seasons at Bayer Leverkusen yielded 69 goals and assists — yes, in a slightly easier league, but more than Cole Palmer, more than Phil Foden, more than Jude Bellingham in the same period.
Pairing the new No9 with one of the world’s best No10s was the other element of an attacking redesign, and while Wirtz is yet to catch fire there are glimpses of the unique way he sees the game (notably a jaw-dropping almost-assist at Chelsea).
The team are still getting used to him (he averaged 83 touches a game at Leverkusen and at Liverpool it’s 58, so he is not receiving the volume of ball he might). He has also admitted finding the jump to Premier League intensity a huge challenge, but his work ethic in training and the gym is “through the roof” and he has already added 2.5kg of lean muscle.
“If you can’t see Wirtz is good, don’t watch football,” is one message for those who doubt the young German and Sir Kenny Dalglish, a connoisseur of the 22-year-old’s football brain and abilities, would agree.
But Wirtz also needs time. Edwards was chief analyst at Tottenham Hotspur when a 22-year-old No10 arrived from abroad and was written off as a luxury, too slight. It took several months but he came good, very good. Luka Modric was his name. Other No10s who required a period of adaptation to the Premier League include Dennis Bergkamp and Kevin De Bruyne.
There is acknowledgment that Kerkez, also 22, has found the step up from Bournemouth to Liverpool tricky but allowances are also made for his age and the fact that in possession (where he has most struggled) team-mates are still getting used to his runs.
Slot, amid an unremitting schedule, is trying to bed in the new pieces while dealing with a drop-off from Salah. Yet there was nothing, neither in the physical and playing data, nor what was observed of Salah’s attitude and motivation, that pointed to decline when the Egyptian extended his deal. Issues around his defending (Klopp used to tear his hair out) are nothing new.
He has simply not been scoring or assisting at his normal volume, but taking the long view on players means seeing a different picture to those knocked sideways by 12 bad games. It’s felt Salah is having a blip. There will come a reversion to the mean.
What is true is Slot has yet to establish a convincing new pattern of build-up and way to share attacking responsibilities between the new talents and the old talisman. Do Liverpool play through Wirtz now? Or still Salah? And how do they find Isak? In mitigation, the trio have only been able to spend 135 minutes on the pitch together in the Premier League.
The sale of Luis Díaz to Bayern Munich is projected as a major reason for the slump but Díaz was eyeing a move 18 months ago and it took all of Hughes’s persuasive powers to convince the Colombian to stay for the 2024-25 season. Receiving £70million for a 28-year-old who still wanted to leave was seen as good business and, after considering Lyon’s Malick Fofana, Liverpool decided not to directly replace Díaz because they wanted to leave space in the squad for their incredible youth prospect, the 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha. Another decision for the long term that maybe doesn’t help short-term, amid the slump.
Furthering Slot’s problems is a lack of experience to fall back on. This is true from a personal perspective (until recently, across his whole career, he had never lost more than two consecutive games) and from a squad one. Over the summer, Liverpool lost players with 885 Premier League appearances combined, acquiring ones with 156 Premier League appearances combined.
Then there is football’s lurch towards set pieces and direct play. It’s particularly affecting Liverpool. They were the Premier League’s best team for goals scored and against at set plays in 2022-23, whereas this season they are the worst on both metrics. Weaknesses are clear. Slot’s team have conceded five times as a result of corners from the left.
Opponents are kicking long against Liverpool disproportionately (a 27 per cent rise), leading not only to defensive strain (Virgil van Dijk’s “aerial duels” map shows him, at 34, suddenly having to rush left, right and centre to contest headers everywhere) but blunting one of Liverpool’s long-held attacking “superpowers”, their ability to regain possession high then create chances.
It fascinates that, unlike Arsenal, their response is not to join the trend but consciously stand apart, with Slot doubling down on his ball-playing principles and the summer recruitment focused around “ability and brains”, not power and size. “We’ve gone technical and quick when others have gone big and strong,” a source said.
The long view is the style shift is temporary and we’ll revert to the pattern that football has followed over the past two decades, away from directness and towards a skills-and-possession game. Liverpool’s rebuild will prove prescient if that’s the case. If not, they will reassess.
And so to Jota. It would be glib to try to quantify the impact of his tragic death in a road accident in July. Suffice to say no other Premier League side prepared for the new season with grief counsellors embedded at their training ground. Robertson’s interview after qualifying for the World Cup with Scotland, when he talked about still “being in bits” about his friend, hinted at the ongoing suffering in Liverpool’s dressing room.
Jota — along with “Robbo” — was known as its most connective presence socially, the player everyone liked and got close to. His loss has impacted the signings too. They walked into their new workplace at the worst of times and Jota would have been the very first guy to welcome them in.
This week or bust? That’s just not how Liverpool bosses think
Slot has “a week to save his job” Jamie Carragher wrote. Carragher understands more about Liverpool than most of us ever will, but he may be mistaken there. “This week or bust” is just not how the hierarchy at Anfield think, at least until now anyway.
A personal view is dispensing with Slot would not only be an injustice and mistake, it would tarnish some of what Liverpool is. An institution that has seldom listened to outside noise, that has never sacked a manager during the tenure in which they won the league title — and it has more of those than any other club.
We live in the age of attention deficit, the attention economy. Recently the little factoid was aired that since the release of the iPhone (2007), the UK has had seven prime ministers whereas the previous seven spanned 43 years. The prevailing foot-stamping lack of patience makes football management more precarious than ever.
Four of the five shortest reigns in Premier League history were in the last three seasons, and 52 out of 94 clubs in the top four divisions have changed managers since the start of 2024-25. Some of the online discourse is abhorrent (an AI-generated meme did the rounds of Klopp punching Slot in the face), some of it is almost comical (like Boris Becker taking to X to decree “Slot’s days are numbered”) and some is sadly indicative.
Some previously reasonable voices within Liverpool’s burgeoning fan media have turned and there’s the supporter, with a big following, who posted on Wednesday that Slot should “be sacked before he leaves the stadium”. This same fan, two months earlier, posted a picture of Slot in a Superman cape with the comment “at this rate we’ll have the PL won by January”.
Steven Gerrard, a former captain, said something perceptive after PSV, that Slot “has to stop the bleeding”. That seems right. No manager, whatever the era, whatever his past success, can keep losing forever. Slot is super-intelligent and super-hard-working, but one thing he has not really tried is doing what a new manager would do if parachuted into Liverpool’s situation: retrench, take the team back to first principles, focus on being hard to score against, dig in.
Last year, Guardiola endured a worse run (nine defeats in 13 with only one win) and few doubted City were right to stick with him. His solution was to revamp his defence and hasten the transition away from older players. Kyle Walker departed, De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan started together in only three of the next 18 games.
Food for thought, and when Salah is at the Africa Cup of Nations, there may be more space to work on new things. Slot a top manager, just out of form. Why not see if he can find his way through?
