All right, we've all been discussing Slot to death (I think there are at least 3 Slot threads on the first page), but I still feel the biggest culprits are the players - it was not the manager's tactics that suddenly forced good players to be bad, it was the underperformance by a lot of the key players that posed a set of problems that Slot has been unable to solve. Let's go through the list from worst to best:
Frimpong - negligible contribution, so far the most forgettable signing.
Gomez - the fact that no matter how poor Konate has been he has never pushed for a starting place or justified another look in his brief appearances says a lot. Sadly, he should have been sold.
Konate - strong contender for scapegoat #1 this season, his head is all over the place and so is his performance level, even within one game as it was yesterday. He can be very good, but he is also an emotional player and clearly letting external things affect him. The club has a decision to make.
Kerkez - most baffling underperformance of the new signings. Such a shame, because we needed him to be good right away.
MacAllister - scapegoat #2. It's hard to point to fitness issues as an excuse at the end of November and he did have a couple of improved games before dropping his level again. Baffling as he should have been one of the on-pitch leaders.
Salah - scapegoat #3. Started the season in his worst form in years, unbalancing the team who had to carry a wasteful attacker who doesn't defend week after week. To his credit started to look more like himself in the last few games (including the first half-hour against Forest), so what do you do with him now? Doesn't make sense dropping him now that he's in a better form, but other issues remain.
Gakpo - scapegoat #4. Probably Slot's biggest blind spot, epitomizing what has been wrong with his approach - he's a useful attacking bludgeon to convert dominance into goals, but he's also fairly useless when you're not dominant, which we clearly mostly aren't. Every possible path to a first 11 that doesn't get outplayed every week for me starts with replacing Gakpo with someone else, then bringing him on when we've earned the right to play. I can't believe how Slot doesn't see it.
Isak - scapegoat #5. You start to wonder if some Geordie curse is upon him and us as a result of the acrimonious exit. He looks nothing like the player he was. There is definitely a player there to unlock, but you need a manager with serious psychological skill and for whatever reason Slot has been unable to connect with Isak.
Robertson - same brave heart, same lovely football brain, but he simply c a n n o t defend one on one against anyone with pace. That's a fatal flaw for a fullback and between him and Kerkez the LB has been a constant weakness all season.
Endo - his only memorable contribution was that horrible missed header that led to a goal. His and others' struggles do point to Slot's inability to keep squad players happy.
Bradley - I'm still working him out, meh most of the season, world-class against Madrid as usual, injured as usual. Fair to say he didn't make us forget about Trent.
Mamardashvili - did well by #2 standards, did not totally convince judging by #1 standards, but has the excuse that Alisson's injury forced him to play before he totally acclimatized. At least seems pretty unflappable emotionally, which is a plus under the circumstances.
Alisson - missed almost 50% of our games this season, which hurt us during a key stretch.
Leoni - what can you say? I feel like his ACL injury in that wretched game was somehow the turning point in the season, when everything suddenly turned from hopeful to shit.
Rio - that goal seems so far away now. Another victim of Gakpo being the manager's favourite.
Wirtz - in hindsight the struggles to integrate him early on robbed us of important momentum; he started individually improving just as the rest of the team lost last shreds of confidence. This whole season will be a test of his mettle.
Jones - the usual cycling between good, meh and injuried.
Van Dijk - still mostly good individually, but I keep thinking about that Aston Villa 7:2 game under Klopp when we also started the season well and in that one game Van Dijk's arrogance was exposed and the season unraveled from there. No one can take being a title-winning captain from him, but he has his weaknesses as a leader. He needs a Milner next to him to balance things out.
Gravenberch - has been OK to be fair, started scoring after going full season without a goal. Injury came at a bad time.
Ekitike - mostly a bright spark this season and the only new signing who has been an improvement on the player he replaced. That said, he's had his share of meh to poor games as well and sometimes he looks petulant - I hope this less than cheerful environment doesn't bring him down too much.
Chiesa - just give him a run of games FFS. He has a bit of Diaz about him and that's what we're sorely missing.
Szoboszlai - the only key player who has improved compared to last season, which is a testament to his character. We all dream of a team of Szobos.
==========
So that's where we are, I recon - a small handful of players who can count this season as a positive, a few more who were about par and pretty much half the squad, including some key players, having an absolute stinker. A lot of the issues could and should have been handled better by Slot, but the bulk of the problem unfortunately have been the players, individually failing to match their own title-winning standards and collectively being arrogant or not caring enough. Some have passed the character test, but for everybody else no one should be safe. It's all about what you can produce in the next game and it starts now.
Frimpong - negligible contribution, so far the most forgettable signing.
Gomez - the fact that no matter how poor Konate has been he has never pushed for a starting place or justified another look in his brief appearances says a lot. Sadly, he should have been sold.
Konate - strong contender for scapegoat #1 this season, his head is all over the place and so is his performance level, even within one game as it was yesterday. He can be very good, but he is also an emotional player and clearly letting external things affect him. The club has a decision to make.
Kerkez - most baffling underperformance of the new signings. Such a shame, because we needed him to be good right away.
MacAllister - scapegoat #2. It's hard to point to fitness issues as an excuse at the end of November and he did have a couple of improved games before dropping his level again. Baffling as he should have been one of the on-pitch leaders.
Salah - scapegoat #3. Started the season in his worst form in years, unbalancing the team who had to carry a wasteful attacker who doesn't defend week after week. To his credit started to look more like himself in the last few games (including the first half-hour against Forest), so what do you do with him now? Doesn't make sense dropping him now that he's in a better form, but other issues remain.
Gakpo - scapegoat #4. Probably Slot's biggest blind spot, epitomizing what has been wrong with his approach - he's a useful attacking bludgeon to convert dominance into goals, but he's also fairly useless when you're not dominant, which we clearly mostly aren't. Every possible path to a first 11 that doesn't get outplayed every week for me starts with replacing Gakpo with someone else, then bringing him on when we've earned the right to play. I can't believe how Slot doesn't see it.
Isak - scapegoat #5. You start to wonder if some Geordie curse is upon him and us as a result of the acrimonious exit. He looks nothing like the player he was. There is definitely a player there to unlock, but you need a manager with serious psychological skill and for whatever reason Slot has been unable to connect with Isak.
Robertson - same brave heart, same lovely football brain, but he simply c a n n o t defend one on one against anyone with pace. That's a fatal flaw for a fullback and between him and Kerkez the LB has been a constant weakness all season.
Endo - his only memorable contribution was that horrible missed header that led to a goal. His and others' struggles do point to Slot's inability to keep squad players happy.
Bradley - I'm still working him out, meh most of the season, world-class against Madrid as usual, injured as usual. Fair to say he didn't make us forget about Trent.
Mamardashvili - did well by #2 standards, did not totally convince judging by #1 standards, but has the excuse that Alisson's injury forced him to play before he totally acclimatized. At least seems pretty unflappable emotionally, which is a plus under the circumstances.
Alisson - missed almost 50% of our games this season, which hurt us during a key stretch.
Leoni - what can you say? I feel like his ACL injury in that wretched game was somehow the turning point in the season, when everything suddenly turned from hopeful to shit.
Rio - that goal seems so far away now. Another victim of Gakpo being the manager's favourite.
Wirtz - in hindsight the struggles to integrate him early on robbed us of important momentum; he started individually improving just as the rest of the team lost last shreds of confidence. This whole season will be a test of his mettle.
Jones - the usual cycling between good, meh and injuried.
Van Dijk - still mostly good individually, but I keep thinking about that Aston Villa 7:2 game under Klopp when we also started the season well and in that one game Van Dijk's arrogance was exposed and the season unraveled from there. No one can take being a title-winning captain from him, but he has his weaknesses as a leader. He needs a Milner next to him to balance things out.
Gravenberch - has been OK to be fair, started scoring after going full season without a goal. Injury came at a bad time.
Ekitike - mostly a bright spark this season and the only new signing who has been an improvement on the player he replaced. That said, he's had his share of meh to poor games as well and sometimes he looks petulant - I hope this less than cheerful environment doesn't bring him down too much.
Chiesa - just give him a run of games FFS. He has a bit of Diaz about him and that's what we're sorely missing.
Szoboszlai - the only key player who has improved compared to last season, which is a testament to his character. We all dream of a team of Szobos.
==========
So that's where we are, I recon - a small handful of players who can count this season as a positive, a few more who were about par and pretty much half the squad, including some key players, having an absolute stinker. A lot of the issues could and should have been handled better by Slot, but the bulk of the problem unfortunately have been the players, individually failing to match their own title-winning standards and collectively being arrogant or not caring enough. Some have passed the character test, but for everybody else no one should be safe. It's all about what you can produce in the next game and it starts now.
