Once United sign Ole back he will suddenly rediscover his specific rule of not criticizing a manager after crapping on every manager in the league for the last 5 years.
..and Diogo Jota was a big personality in the squad, a lot of the senior players are feeling it the most ~ when Professional players realise Life is more important than work/football, it really hits you in the guts...
Neville fckn hates liverpool. We're underperforming but somehow still 4th in the league. He fckn hates that. We haven't fired our manager, but his team has. He fckn hates that x10.
The way websites like TikTok and YouTube censor shit now has a lot of people just self censor because they're used to it. Hate that it has happened, but that is the world we live in.
And I personally hate the people who want Arne sacked tbh. Sacking a manager like this has never worked in favour of a club in the long run. Look at the state of united and chelsea.
Let's give him time. At least we are in the top 4.
Yep. And Slot has won the fucking premier league. It's really really really hard to win the league man. Long term supporters will know this because we've had so many near misses.
Playing well, facing the pressure, not collapsing mentally. After Klopp went the team could've gone "wtf does this guy know" like every other team that replaces a legendary manager.
That's why Neville was so confident of our downfall last season. He has seen too many of these scenarios play out that way.
Slot is trying to make us play good tiki taka football lmao. God know if he will succeed but to sack him now is stupid.
After all the shit this summer, and replacing such a substantial part of the first 11, getting top4 was always my hope for the season. We're doing a rebuild - you don't immediately get back on top!
I thought we brought too many players in to be starters over the summer and not necessarily in the places we needed them while losing too many good players...
Some factors were out of our control, the death of Diogo, the late arrival of Isak and the situation at CP.
Additionally, some existing players have not performed at the level the can play week in week out
I think we brought in the replacements we needed - we knew we needed to do some severe renewals, and we knew Trent was going. Wirtz was too good of a deal to leave undone, and in retrospect the same goes for Hugo (I feel like we fleeced them there). Needing changes on both backs and left/central forward led to the entire system needing a renewal, and now we're experiencing that this doesn't happen at the flip of a switch.
I'm not sure if Slot is the solution long term but I certainly wouldn't sack him mid-season, it will be more harmful in the long run.
I'd ride out this season with Slot and then see how it goes. We can then reassess in the summer and decide whether we should keep him or replace him, doing it in the summer would be significantly less disruptive than doing it mid-season.
I think he is the solution. This is a rebuilding season, so if he manages to get top 4, id say it's good enough.
He's won the prem once already. Give him time and he might win even more. Too many changes have taken place here, and it will take time before the team reaches that dominance that it had last season.
It's looks very likely given our recent turnaround and the turmoil at Utd and Chelsea that we'll finish top four. Our record against top teams is excellent so a good run in the CL is also possible. Thus, there's absolutely no chance whatsoever, zero, that Slot is replaced in the summer. FSG won't even be considering it.
Yea. That incredibly poor run where nothing was changed I admittedly wanted him out if he wasn’t going to make some changes. You can only do the exact same thing and expect different results so many times.
But now that he’s started making those changes, the lads look less lost, we’ve slowed the bleeding down, I’m absolutely willing to give him some more time.
I think we were all a bit spoiled when we rebuilt the entire midfield and all the new boys (except gravy) hit the ground running. I think that set the expectations a bit high for all the new signings this window. Realistically with so much change, not only in players but it seems slot wants to change the entire system, this was never going to be an easy year.
All we can ask for is effort and improvement. Give us something to build on for next season and as long as we get champions league for next year I think we’ve hit the mark. Anything else we achieve this year is a bonus.
We have seen he can take a team and win. Now he must show he can build a new one.
In my opinion it is way to early to sack him. But Hughes in my mind should be looked at. Squad planning over the summer was the worst we have had in a long time.
Ofcourse, TAA leaving, and Jota tragically passing made his job extremely hard. But I still think our targeting of Isak was wrong, even if I think he will be great here. A propper Diaz replacement rather than another mega striker would transfer this team.
This is a bit of hindsight seing how good Hugo has been though. But I had the same opinion in the summer.
This is migitating factors for Slot. The team is unbalanced and a bit short on personell.
On the other hand the slump in confidence absolutely is on him. And the same can be said about how long it took for him to really start making changes.
It also baffles me that we went from one of the best counter attacking teams in the world to a team that absolutely don't take counters in the span of 1 year. And how VVD seemingly has lost his ability to shift play quickly with a long pass. He used to be absolutely great at it.
About your goal for the season I agree.
CL qualification and a decent CL run this year was my goal before the season. To many changes to expect a title run. Something absolutely every pundit and expert agreed on before the Isak signing. It changed the narrative from the media about our season completely. They went from transition season to walking the title after Isak.
I agree with everything that Studge has said here.
But he missed one thing out - the managers level has also dropped massively. His decision making has been shit this year (some would argue it started last year).
And that is arguably a bigger problem than the players not performing.
Team selections. Playing style changes. Formation choice. Substitutions. All been shit.
Last night was a dogged performance and possibly the first time this season I’ve seen a Liverpool team that can hold its head high after a match due to the sheer hard work and effort put in to try and get a result.
I think he is starting to get back into the tactical decisions mid game - Arsenal being a good example of it but he’s still not as good as last season.
yesterday we had like a junior bench selection aside Jones, Robbo. Not subbing was a good decision this time, how many times he changed players and game went into the bin.
Kerkez I think is at the level we would've expected from Tsimikas, Wirtz has been very very good as well but doesn't quite fit the system to show his best. Frimpong is a completely different player from TAA, but when he's fit he's opened up our attack in a unique way.
I think the signings we made were very good overall, but the level of talent we lost in the summer was going to be impossible to replace and we were never going to start where we had been at the jump.
It's worth remembering that all this is a work in progress for the team as well. I think Slot was kinda fucked over by it being such a huge summer of change in the squad when realistically we needed some signings last summer, not to mention that none of the signings we made were like for like replacements for who we sold.
We all remember how Klopp had a habit of keeping some new signings on the bench or starting them a handful of times until they fully got an understanding of how we play (Fabinho being the best example), Slot hasn't been able to do that with the new signings, it's why I think Wirtz and Kerkez have struggled
I agree with what you said here, and I would add that I think the player we are missing the most this season is Diaz. We lack pace on the wings, he would just grab the ball and drag us up the pitch plus his finishing was improving, we are desperate for some of that again but outside of Rio (who is still young) I don't see where we get it from without a new player coming in.
What difference does that make? Your comment implies we lack Diaz as a winger, whereas his main position was CF. Strikers make runs into the channels / in behind on to the wings all the time. I agree with you other than you are misremembering his position
Salah and Diaz were an outlet, took the pressure of our back and could be accessed with a long ball. We were missing a lot of chances which is still better than now. Szobo added to that with his chaos press which was another outlet. Now if Frimpong can stay fit he can be a good replacement for Mo, (he definitely isn't a LB suited for the Prem) rather a winger and Kerkez can maraud on the left, but he needs Wirtz who completely understands him, and not Gakpo who mocks him.
We had a very settled team (remember, last season there was only 1 new signing and it was Chiesa) and suddenly changed half of it, while also making the squad smaller
It was always a hugely risky strategy, especially given how knackered our team were at the end of last season. Compare that to Arsenal who keep adding to their squad and its paying off for them massively.
indeed, but we all agree we wanted to sell those players, except 1. Nunez was being sold online non stop by the fans let's be real.
Mistakes were: doubling the 9 position and not convincing or raising Diaz to stay. His dream was Barca or La liga. ended up in Bundesliga, which is 2 steps inferior to where he was. Are you telling me Diaz workrate didn't register at FSG, and they wanted to sell no matter what? We couldn't offer him the same as Bayern? Our whole pressing was only Szobo, and Diaz ffs. Now if we put together Wirtz, Eki, Isak, Gakpo they don't equal one Diaz's workrate. Players that are "creative" don't really put in the shift.
We've lost about seven first team players and it's clear the lads that came in beside ekiteke havnt equally replaced the others. Yet anyway.
IMO, it's not really about the 1-1 replacement, but more about how it changed the balance of the entire team.
As Sturridge mentions here, Diaz was tenacious up front, pressing.... which was the same thing with Nunez and Jota. All that hard work was what allowed Salah to have his defensively lenient role and perform at the level he did offensively. Now we have Isak, Wirtz and Ekitike, who I would argue that like-for-like are better individually than who they replaced, but we lost some of the pace, physicality and hard work.
I think we could see yesterday how much Frimpong contributed by having pace on the wing, something we have sorely lacked this season.
We have started to figure things out gradually over the season, but it takes time when the entire balance of the team changes, you got new teammates with new ways of thinking and with different strengths and weaknesses that players have to adapt to, on top of the grief of losing a friend and teammate in Jota.
Now we have Isak, Wirtz and Ekitike, who I would argue that like-for-like are better individually than who they replaced, but we lost some of the pace, physicality and hard work.
It's also about the way we press. All three knew how we pressed which slot could adjust minimally. The new boys have to learn the timing and positioning. A late press is a useless press. If you don't cut off the right lanes or the right player, it becomes easy to play through. Plus with teams in the prem set up to negate the press, it was just a recipe for disaster.
It's great that we have recovered to where we are now.
It's also about the way we press. All three knew how we pressed which slot could adjust minimally. The new boys have to learn the timing and positioning. A late press is a useless press. If you don't cut off the right lanes or the right player, it becomes easy to play through. Plus with teams in the prem set up to negate the press, it was just a recipe for disaster.
Yes, this obviously matters, but even though Wirtz and Ekitike works fairly hard, they are not as tenacious as Diaz and Nunez. Isak is by no means a workhorse striker, and more of a goal scorer. In that sense he had pretty much the same role at Newcastle as Salah hah here last season, with somewhat lenient defensive responsibilities, and a team of hard workers around him
i feel like it was all Diaz, Nunez, Jota, and esp. Szobo who pressed properly. Now, Szobo is recharging his battery , cause he noticed the other 4 around him don't know how to press. it's quite straight forward, when the defender releases the ball, you start your press on the target. But you already have to be close to him otherwise you just empty the gas tank. But Jones somehow as a pro , still didn't "steal" the correct technique from Dominik Szoboszlai . Who has a text book press. Good positioning , good timing. and Jones still is ineffective with it.
Agreed. Less about 1 for 1 and more about the qualities those guys had and the chemistry they built up over three seasons together. I don't necessarily agree that the new signings are better individually IF you account for how well last year's team complemented each other.
But you are spot on that the players are needing time to adapt to one another. The frustrating part of all this is simply that management didn't need to go rebuild this season, they just made some costly miscalculations.
indeed and it's also about what is available on the market at that level, at that time.
But we need piano carriers with a fine foot as well. We can't have only magicians like Coutinho, Thiago, Wirtz. Our midfield was never successful with this type of player in producing silverware. We had success with tall, strong workhorses like Hendo, Szobo or shorter but stocky Milner type to provide a base for the strikers to score. Now we have 3-4 up front that only try to create, but without the ball they only act like they press.
Sure you give a pass for Salah when he was in shape, cause Szobo covered for him, but Szobo can't cover for Wirtz, Eki, Isak and co. alone.
Outside purists Milner is never talked about in young fan groups, but he was a better leader than VD.
He’s disingenuous. He’s not interested in the truth, he has an agenda he’s selling. He doesn’t want to agree with Sturridge as to the most logical and obvious reason, he wants to sell this “they’ve slacked off” narrative.
lol…after Sturridge shut him up with the proper reasons and was concluding his argument saying that the new players haven’t t performed at the level of the players they replaced. Neville went “But why?” 🤣
For me it's the fact that everyone who was here last season also looks levels below their own standards except for Alisson, genuinely every player on the pitch who has tactics they are meant to adhere to looks poor. Still a Slot issue for me.
Love Studge & he loves us.
Never stops supporting us even when he has something critical to say.
He's right. We felt we had a great transfer window Wirtz, Isak, Frimpong, Ekitike but whilst we all knew that we would try to replace Trent "in the round" only the wisest saw Luchos loss as key. I know I didn't. Add to that or tragic loss of Diogo and we have the answer to why we're always on the back foot.
Imagine the U shape build up with Diogo and Lucho darting about? It may not be as bad as we see now. Also our press! Again both were key.
I want to mention my boy Darwin as well, good presser, yeah when he had a bad game he could not score against a rainbow but he always opened space for Mo and other attackers with his runs
I do feel we've lost something with the absence of Darwin. He was maybe not at the level we want to be BUT I feel we always felt more dangerous with him on the pitch. He reminded me of an old fashioned forward, a Bergkamp or a Gudjohnson to Mo's Henry. Big lad who pulls defenders out of position to give the other striker and forwards more space. Its not what Nunez did on the ball its what he did without it. Not a starter but he would have been a valuable squad player.
This is the thing, Darwin was an elite player in every way that wasn’t the most important for his position. He did so much and was somewhat similar to Bobby in the way he made our other attackers better due to his mere physical presence, especially Salah.
Some redditors really have no nuance whatsoever, huh? The comparison to Firmino was in how Darwin made the other attackers better by occupying space and drawing their attention/pulling them out of position. It’s not a revisionist take, Salah benefited from it heavily to the point Salah named Darwin as the player he loved playing with the most.
No one is saying Darwin was the same player as Bobby, they can share traits without being carbon copies. I shouldn’t have needed to explain this but here we are, nuance is lacking it seems.
Without calling him elite
Elite speed, elite strength, elite general physicality, elite pressing, strong link up play. God awful finishing.
Exactly like I said, elite in ways that weren’t the most important for his position.
Amen brother. It's plain to see without that dogged pressing, the speed on the break that Nunez gave us, we aren't as dynamic without him. Teams were aware of that threat and whether he would score or not was almost irrelevant because it was the fear of what he could do.
His pressing wasn’t elite. That was a large reason both Klopp and Slot didn’t play him, perhaps you mean stamina, or ability to press? Tactically pressing was one of his weaknesses
Sturridge had the best celebration that 13/14 season. Just exuded so much joy with that inflatable arm dance thing. I mimicked every time he scored. And I bought that awful black white and purple kit that I love.That season was so fun
This is all good in theory but Slot clearly doesn't want an intensive press so it wouldn't matter anyway. Those guys would either stop pressing or they'd be on the bench.
Back when we played for the club we had Giggseh, Keaneh, Beckseh, Scholeseh, Butteh, Sasuage Rolleh Polleh and Rio as well! I remember Ferguson sticking two fingers up the arse of my brother bedause he was 2 minutes late for training! I said 'oi gaffer I'm three minutes late does that mean i get one extrah?'. It was different back then, it was Man united, it was the premier league! It's a disgrace!
We sold Diaz and Nunez and lost Jota. Three very good pressing forwards. We replaced them with Ekitike, Isak and Wirtz - three very different players and one who has been injured all season.
The other major outgoing was Trent and we replaced him with Frimpong, who has also had a long injury as has Bradley meaning we've had to play midfielders at right back.
I think quality wise we did ok with the replacements but they haven't had time to gel (also Kerkez got thrown into the mix) which hasn't been helped by injuries and the passing of Jota which heavily impacted pre-season and everyone at the club.
Because nobody can wait for anything anymore. Klopp got a couple of years to build a team before he started putting it together completely. Slot comes in and wins the league at his first attempt then wants to rebuild and there's already people calling for his head.
How tf are supposed to move on from the last great teams without some upheaval and disruption. We're literally transitioning right now with some pretty impressive future proofing purchases but God forbid they have to find their rhythm they should just win every game ever, are they stupid or what.
Maybe I'm just old I dunno lol. I watched us be shite since the nineties so a year of transition after a golden age of being a supporter is okay with me
For sure. The lack of patience from some fans is silly. Fact of the matter is the investment over the break wasn't targeting this season's PL. It's the start of a five-seven year play. Everyone spending money at the club would have it factored in that this should be our worst season of the new era.
I think winning the league did him more harm than good in this case. More people probably expected us to have season like this last year. Instead we didn't change much and won the league. Then we spent a lot of money and expectations were crazy high.
And I get that people are dissapointed. I'm also dissappointed. But some of the things people are saying are just stupid. Most really think that Slot is terrible and that most problems will magically dissaper if he's sacked. Some of the same people were saying he's a genious last season. But things are never that simple.
We've had a lot of changes, a lot of things happened and some problems were expected. We're also a bit unlucky wirh injuries, refs... And sometimes/most of the time things take time, after so many changes. Now Slot might not be the right manager/coach for us, time will tell. But people are overreacting
This is exactly my opinion as well. People have lost patience nowadays. This is a transition season, and it will take time. As long as we get top 4, I think it's perfectly fine to keep Arne. If we perform horribly next season, then the sacking of Arne can be understood.
We were shite from when I started watching in 95-96 until Klopp. Had a little period where we were looking like returning to the top but the cowboys made sure that didn't happen. Only having one of our greatest ever players literally carrying us on his back meant we won anything ffs. I still loved them though. Except bolo zenden. Had an irrational hatred for him. Oh and fuck diouf but that was more rational than irrational imo
When you're a kid your attachments to certain players can be so random. I used to like playing keeper in primary school and remember crying when we sold Westerveld, looking back I have no idea why lmao
We had the same number of points per game in the first and second half of the season. Before the league was wrapped up and the players went on holiday, we lost once to Fulham.
In the 2nd half of the season, teams adjusted to our tactics and made the games more difficult for us. Salah's goals and assists also fell away; however, that doesn't mean we were shit and it doesn't mean you get to rewrite history to suit a narrative.
Newcastle didn’t adjust to our tactics, they totally dominated us with their style of play. Same with PSG. I’m not rewriting anything either, I was saying it at the time.
Most underrated part of the players who left is availability. As injury prone as Trent was during his last few years here, it's nowhere near Bradley's. Trent could also play 90 minutes every 3 days no problem. Same with Diaz and Nunez.
Meanwhile Wirtz and Ekitike need to be very carefully managed since apparently they can't play 90 mins every 3 days. Heck Ekitike even got injured already despite not playing that many minutes.
This is a brilliant vignette of this whole debate.
Sturridge brings the facts.
Neville needs to ignore them to support his biases. For him, it must be something deeper because he can't cope with Liverpool's success relative to Man Utd.
Honestly I was with Sturridge until he said Quansah was there when we needed him. He wasn't, he barely played, that's just an excuse.
Diaz has been a huge loss on terms of his pressing his creativity setting the tempo etc
Trent is a huge loss in terms of necessitating a switch in formation to bring in a new attacking dynamic to replace him. For me Frimpomg isn't Trents replacement, Wirtz is. Unfortunately Wirtz is one of the incoming players that hasn't really clicked yet.
Don’t listen to Neville talking about us, 50% of what he says is ok but his bias is never that far off. Sturridge talking sense, our new signings haven’t all kicked on yet and how many times do people need to be reminded about the passing of Diogo. I’ll be happy with 4th and a cup.
The theatrics of one person putting another in his place are part of what they want from the pundits. Not disagreeing about Neville, but his stubborn insistence creates drama, and they thrive off of jf
Exactly this. I think the reason why Neville has such a successful media career is that he's prepared to say stupid, blunt, antagonistic things to get a conversation going, because most audiences don't actually want considered analysis, they want a debate to get angry about. I do find Neville pretty unlikeable, but I people calling him stupid are just playing into his shtick, and the whole pantomime of TV and radio football coverage. These days I tend to mute the TV from the moment the half-time whistle goes until the players come back onto the pitch.
our outs include trent, diaz, nunez,quansah, elitotte and tsimi on loan and jota through tragedy every single one of them were crucial during points in both klopp's last season and slot's first...
yes weve bought some talent but also they dont do the things that made the others key ..today while they are seen as better players not one of those players pressed the way diaz nunez and elliott would have and we know that we know there would be know way the gooner goalie would have had the freedom he had today with the passes back to him cause one of those three would have been down his throat...
The same Americans who have helped Liverpool win every top trophy in club football? Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to have a competitive league.
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Trolling rival subs, whether it is posts or comments, with the sole purpose of taking the piss and/or antagonising users is not allowed. It makes our user base look childish and incapable of self-control, creates headaches for moderators, and inspires reciprocal trolling. Since this rule was instituted across club subreddits, we have seen a drop in trolling. Any links to rival subs have to be 'np.reddit' links.
Good man Studge. He's absolutely wiped the floor with Neville there.
Gary Neville is completely irrelevant as a pundit. A failed manager and a nobody at united in a era when full backs were about as relevant as the canteen lady. His bias against Liverpool is clear as day. Shouldn't be involved in any Liverpool games. Can't understand how he doesn't get called out more on his bias. When Carragher comments on United, he's usually spot on, constructive, not really taking digs at them.
The fact is we lost a ton of players last summer. Studge didn't even get to mention Jota. But here's the thing, these are all players that were playing for by far and away the best team in the league last season and the 2nd best in Europe imo. These are players in their prime and they are world class. Imagine if united lost giggs, scholes and keane all in one summer, in their primes - they'd have been fcuking goosed!
I think that Wirtz, Ekitike and Kerkez are all good signings. I think they will all come good. But they all need time, just as the players we lost were given tons of time by Klopp.
Neville probably knows this but he's taking a dig and trying to destabilise us, like the rest of the scum supporters in the media. Hope they get another shite manager in and finally get relegated.
The problem is our signings didn't really fill the gaps of the players who left for the most part. We lost a very good winger in Diaz who provided that width and replaced him with a striker.
And then we get Isak who other than being injured all season is a striker completely different to what we have had from the pressing forwards of the past. And realistically need to build our entire system around him to get the most out of him.
Then we lose the most creative player in our entire team and replace him with a winger, who has also been injured basically all season.
Then we signed Wirtz who is a 10 in a team who didn't really play with a 10 and is realistically directly competing against McAllister, who was one of our best players last season. And due to that and the problems on the wings we have, Wirtz has played as a 10, 8, winger, striker, false 9, second striker during the course of half a season which is ludicrous. The best player we signed, has a different role every week.
So ultimately its a combination of a lot of things. We lost some really good players, we bought players who don't fit the current system we play and its been a work in progress, we have had a lot more injuries this season than last and we have had some regression from the likes of Salah, McAllister and Konate.
It's interesting because I remember during that the Wirtz saga there was an article about the meeting with Slot where Slot supposedly convinced Wirtz with his clear plan on how to fit him in the team as opposed to what Bayern presented him.
I think not replacing Diaz was the big one. I understand why they sold but crazy we didn’t bring in a like for like. Look at the difference having a bit of pace in wide areas made yesterday with Frimpong at RW.
For 33 winners of the prem, only 11 won it the year before. It's very difficult to retain a title.
Liverpool sold/lost key players, one in the most tragic of circumstances and brought in players who mostly haven't settled in yet. Isak has been unfit and Wirtz hasn't been utilised properly (although I'm quite happy with how he plays). Salah has fallen off massively, which cannot be planned for. Players like MacAllister, van Dijk, Konate and Gravenberch have dipped significantly.
I think the transfer committee made some mistakes. Primarily not bringing in more CB cover, a Diaz replacement and a more mobile number 6. But, like pretty much everyone else last summer, I was buzzing. I think this team will come good with the aforementioned additions but transition is usually painful in sport.
This team with a more explosive winger (Rodrgyo, Gordon or Barcola), a CB or two (Guehi and/or Schlotterbeck would be nice) and a 6 like Elliot Anderson or Baleba would be challenging on multiple fronts. Injuries aside, the starting 11's are pretty similar between the top teams but City and especially Arsenal have a much stronger bench. That needs to improve with the amount if games to be played.
Slot should be allowed time to rebuild this team. Last night was a very positive result as was Real Madrid as was Inter. We’ve had some very dissapointing results this season as we know but he has steadied the ship. It may not be the football we’d like to see yet as we appear a bit blunt but I have faith it will come. I thought last night Macca, Szobo and Grav looked more like their old selves playing as a unit which is huge. Let’s be positive we are not clusterfucks like Utd and Chelsea.
Missing key players is one part of the reason. But there's a more serious issue that started mid season last year when Slot basically decided to abandon the high press bc (in his own words) we needed to "preserve energy to control the game better". What we see now is the end result of months of football tactic that is the exact opposite of what this team was built for over the course of 8 years. Need to bring back the energy if we're going to compete
People seem to miss the nuance that neville is literally being paid to say no in these situations. They are not pairing people up to sit there and go "yes i agree with everything... Next segment"
Whenever he does our games and it’s tight he’s always trying to jinx it with comments like.. oh Liverpool doing well here they should get a point at least.. he’s just a big sore loser and hates the reds
I actually think they're both right but Neville is being a twat in this clip not accepting that Sturridge is making a good point as well.
We've lost good players and replacements like Isak, Frimpong and Kerkez haven't come in and been able to consistently start and play to the same level. But at the same time the performances of players like Salah, MacAllister and Konate seem to have completely dropped off this season.
Ekitike is the only new signing who has really hit the ground running this season, and Szoboslai is the only player in the starting XI who I think has looked like a player who won the title last season.
Also said us winning the Carabao became a platform for us winning the league. Forgetting we won a Champions League and a Premier League before winning the Carabao under Jürgen.
Really obtuse of Neville to take that stance on Sturridge's opinion - he's desperate for there to be more of a "story".
Liverpool sold a lot of "risk takers" like Luiz Diaz and Trent and the majority of new players aren't going to feel confident taking the same level of risk.
Dude just made more money than you and your family will make by selling overlap, because people kept watching his shows, talks about it. He doesn’t even need to try, the more obtuse he is he’ll get more views and these views make him more and more money
Yeah fair enough. At the end of the day his job isn't to give objective and fact based opinions, it's to sell himself / his personality to fans who click and watch.
I’d tell you guys to stop watching him and stop malding about him, and instead use the time to watch something educational, but it’s not like you guys can stop yourself
I think it's a combination of all these things. There definitely seems to be a little complacency. We walked the league and you could see how the attitude of the whole club changed last year after we won it. The performances dropped and we all went on holiday, and we've never been able to get back to that level.
As Mac Allister said last week, we've changed too many things. Too many players have been sold and bought, and Slot has ripped up the game plan that worked for us for years. The players don't look anywhere near as sharp or fit as they did under Klopp, and there's no identity to the way we play anymore.
Given the circumstances a point was great yesterday. But the fact Slot didn't make any changes when we were on top shows me how scared he is. He could have brought on Chiesa or Rio to try and take the game when we were clearly causing Arsenal problems but he didn't. It rubs off on the players as well. Nobody turns and runs and tries to play forward anymore. Frimpong received the ball from Wirtz in the box, and instead of turning quickly and trying to score, he played it backwards out of the box. It's just possession for the sake of possession, it's don't lose at all costs, it's football that lacks courage.
It's hard to say why this is all happening. Jota, transfers, change of style of play of course are all inseparable now, but I do think there is a mentality thing that we've lost, it's obvious when you watch us play now compared to the Klopp era.
This was always ALWAYS going to be a transition year for us. Slot is secure if we hold onto champions league and our form is better. That second half vs Arsenal was actually good, if we had a striker or more clinical in form players that backed themselves who knows.
Next season and one after that are the years we should be proper no excuses title contenders.
Hell let’s see what form we can get together and how deep into the champions league we can go. That would shut people up.
Sturridge is spot on. We're a team in transition. Losing Trent and Diaz was much bigger than I initially thought.
Trent, understandably, is difficult to replace, there is no other RB who can do what he can do. Which is partly why we signed Wirtz, to replace that source of creativity. He had a slowish start to the season (while still being decent) but he's now clicking and is one of our best players. Not replacing Diaz, on the other hand, was a huge miscalculation. We lack that pacey and pressing winger upfront.
Even with that I think Wirtz on the left wing is him playing out of position. But hopefully we buy a left winger, we have been linked to Barcola from PSG but who knows
Ahh Gary. Does he know that even united fans don’t like him now? Constantly siding with the owners and throwing managers under the bus. Being an absolute prick.
Between Isak and Writz, we should have expected at least 20 G/A by now. But Isak was missing until he scored his first goal and got injured, and Writz is still trying to adjust to the league's physicality!
Those are the most expensive signings in the league's history! Kerkez finally had a good defensive game!
And now we are trying to play boring football!
Neville is a melt but he’s not wrong that a few of our players have champions hangover. It’s a real thing. It happened to City plenty of times. Sturridge is right as well.
He's acting like a bunch of early to mid 20s lads have the same mentality as Liverpool fans when it comes to winning our 20th title. It's insane. Those players will want to be as decorated as they possibly can be. He's fucking deluded
Yeh, Studge is on point here (he didnt have a particualrly good punditry night after this though - lost the run of himself at one point!) but yes, he has provided a solution to garys mystery. We did lose key players (not all of them mentioned by studge) and we’ve had to transition new, good, but qute diffferent players.
To my mind, last night was the best performance of the season.
Sturridge, what a breath of fresh air in the pundit world. Insightful honest opinions tells it how it is. Are you watching Mr Rooney? That's how its done. Better still give him the Utd job and we won't have to listen to his mumbled ramblings.
one thing is easing players in, one by one, another is: starting 3-4 new players at once. IN a new style of play, that the old guard need to adapt to asa well. Signings were not fit for the Prem, had no in game relationships with the main squad. Sturidge is another case of brilliant striker, but clueless pundit. you can't expect 4 new starters to click at once.
Neville posing his opinion as an open-ended question smells like "Is he a pedophile? Some people say he is. I'm just asking." What a dunce. He already made up his mind that it's a mentality issue, ignoring the literal, factual evidence of the loss of key players not being made up for by incoming players.
I don’t think we got bad players in. We’ve seen with Wirtz that with a bit of time they can get more comfortable and contribute. Same with Frimpong an to an extent Izak. Kerkez has looked better. We’re still short on a CB and are overplaying Van Dijk and Konate as a result.
This season went a bit pear shaped, but I think the players we have will improve and the team will get significantly better. The remainder of this season is about staying in the CL and hopefully with a bit less pressure trying to gel and get the attack going.
They're all right. Sturridge is right as to why we're shit. Keane's right as to us being a long way off where we thought we'd be. And Neville is right that it's not acceptable.
If I came to this sub in August and said "Lads we're gonna be fighting for 4th and you'll be happy about it!" I'd have been sent packing, and rightly so.
The new signings have mostly been shit. The old guard have been shit. The manager has been atrocious.
Yet somehow, we're in 4th and we're able to nullify the best team in the land on their own patch, despite all the above.
So there is life in the old dog yet. The dog just needs throwing in an ice-cold pond to make it wake the fuck up asap.
Sturridge is correct about the loss of Diaz and TAA (and the fact that we did not really replace those skills sets) but he also says we are missing Quansah. Sorry, Quansah barely played last year. Only thing that made me question his reasoning here.
My only criticism for Slot is his decision making and player management this season. We have injuries because he overplayed key players and doesn't rotate. At times when we have the game, he'll make changes to the strategy and tank the match in injury time. Something for him to work on I guess.
The media is heavily talking about poor performance when we're in 4th. Those cunts are never satisfied. The way I look at it is if we're 4th playing shit, we must be godly when we get it together. How can you scrutinize 4th, there's 16 other teams below and they aren't shit? Get the fuck off Neville.
He belongs in his basement rubbing one out to the memories of his glory days rather than a football pundit on TV. I'm over the shit that pours out of his mouth, can't take it anymore.
Imagine thinking players getting injured with 15-20 games played and calling that overplaying them. If you assess this at the end of the season sure, but players who actually played the most like vvd szobo Gravenberch are all still healthy, the players who got injured like Isak and frimpong are injured by terrible tackles, and the opposition players escaped without even conceding a foul. Then theres leoni, who injured himself in the first game, the list with the same faces like Ali bajectic Bradley and jones gets injured from time to time it’s predictable even, and now even Endo is injured without starting any game other than cup games we threw away because we were in a poor patch.
Absolutely bonkers to say slot overplayed the players when not only its inane to even say it in mid season, it’s not like slots got much of a choice, I bet you are gonna say he should just start nyoni Rio and Fede like it’s something that wouldn’t have any consequences.
Just look at what mo did because he was dropped for 1 and a half games. Christ. And then you people are naive enough to think Rio and nyoni are good enough to start and teenagers like this won’t make a mistake each game that will cost us the game. Absolutely irresponsible to even say things like this
Most of the fans wanted Trent gone since ManU game, and some of the fans even earlier.
Salah set all the records, but Diaz was our best attacker? Yeah, no.
Quansah was there, when VVD and Konate didn't performed last season? Did Daneil even watched us last season? He barely played in first 3/4 of the season.
Thank you, Dan for defending the club, but this is complete BS.
Neville is completely useless. What's he mean " I'm not having that "
We've lost about seven first team players and it's clear the lads that came in beside ekiteke havnt equally replaced the others. Yet anyway.
Neville doesn't do nuance anymore, not unless you're one of his former teammates from the glory days under Fergie
Once United sign Ole back he will suddenly rediscover his specific rule of not criticizing a manager after crapping on every manager in the league for the last 5 years.
Not to defend coin slot forehead but he never refused to criticise a manager, he refused to call for them to be sacked, and tbf he has stuck to that.
Still let Ole off the hook tho.
He just shouldn't be put on any of our games he can't act like a professional.
You can actually tell Nevilles trying to find the most rage baity response
..and Diogo Jota was a big personality in the squad, a lot of the senior players are feeling it the most ~ when Professional players realise Life is more important than work/football, it really hits you in the guts...
Neville fckn hates liverpool. We're underperforming but somehow still 4th in the league. He fckn hates that. We haven't fired our manager, but his team has. He fckn hates that x10.
You're allowed to swear mate
The way websites like TikTok and YouTube censor shit now has a lot of people just self censor because they're used to it. Hate that it has happened, but that is the world we live in.
I don't think you can be islamaphobic about Neville don't worry
And I personally hate the people who want Arne sacked tbh. Sacking a manager like this has never worked in favour of a club in the long run. Look at the state of united and chelsea.
Let's give him time. At least we are in the top 4.
Yep. And Slot has won the fucking premier league. It's really really really hard to win the league man. Long term supporters will know this because we've had so many near misses.
Playing well, facing the pressure, not collapsing mentally. After Klopp went the team could've gone "wtf does this guy know" like every other team that replaces a legendary manager.
That's why Neville was so confident of our downfall last season. He has seen too many of these scenarios play out that way.
Slot is trying to make us play good tiki taka football lmao. God know if he will succeed but to sack him now is stupid.
After all the shit this summer, and replacing such a substantial part of the first 11, getting top4 was always my hope for the season. We're doing a rebuild - you don't immediately get back on top!
yep, I agree.
I thought we brought too many players in to be starters over the summer and not necessarily in the places we needed them while losing too many good players...
Some factors were out of our control, the death of Diogo, the late arrival of Isak and the situation at CP.
Additionally, some existing players have not performed at the level the can play week in week out
I think we brought in the replacements we needed - we knew we needed to do some severe renewals, and we knew Trent was going. Wirtz was too good of a deal to leave undone, and in retrospect the same goes for Hugo (I feel like we fleeced them there). Needing changes on both backs and left/central forward led to the entire system needing a renewal, and now we're experiencing that this doesn't happen at the flip of a switch.
i do wish we'd bought another CB but I guess we didn't bank on the new kid getting a serious injury first time out - he looked tasty too
I completely agree.
I'm not sure if Slot is the solution long term but I certainly wouldn't sack him mid-season, it will be more harmful in the long run.
I'd ride out this season with Slot and then see how it goes. We can then reassess in the summer and decide whether we should keep him or replace him, doing it in the summer would be significantly less disruptive than doing it mid-season.
I think he is the solution. This is a rebuilding season, so if he manages to get top 4, id say it's good enough.
He's won the prem once already. Give him time and he might win even more. Too many changes have taken place here, and it will take time before the team reaches that dominance that it had last season.
It's looks very likely given our recent turnaround and the turmoil at Utd and Chelsea that we'll finish top four. Our record against top teams is excellent so a good run in the CL is also possible. Thus, there's absolutely no chance whatsoever, zero, that Slot is replaced in the summer. FSG won't even be considering it.
If Slot can turn it around and improve performances then I'd be open to the idea of keeping him.
I'm neither Slot in or Slot Out. I'm more of the "wait and see" crowd, I think most Liverpool fans are probably the same.
Yea. That incredibly poor run where nothing was changed I admittedly wanted him out if he wasn’t going to make some changes. You can only do the exact same thing and expect different results so many times.
But now that he’s started making those changes, the lads look less lost, we’ve slowed the bleeding down, I’m absolutely willing to give him some more time.
I think we were all a bit spoiled when we rebuilt the entire midfield and all the new boys (except gravy) hit the ground running. I think that set the expectations a bit high for all the new signings this window. Realistically with so much change, not only in players but it seems slot wants to change the entire system, this was never going to be an easy year.
All we can ask for is effort and improvement. Give us something to build on for next season and as long as we get champions league for next year I think we’ve hit the mark. Anything else we achieve this year is a bonus.
We have seen he can take a team and win. Now he must show he can build a new one.
In my opinion it is way to early to sack him. But Hughes in my mind should be looked at. Squad planning over the summer was the worst we have had in a long time.
Ofcourse, TAA leaving, and Jota tragically passing made his job extremely hard. But I still think our targeting of Isak was wrong, even if I think he will be great here. A propper Diaz replacement rather than another mega striker would transfer this team.
This is a bit of hindsight seing how good Hugo has been though. But I had the same opinion in the summer.
This is migitating factors for Slot. The team is unbalanced and a bit short on personell.
On the other hand the slump in confidence absolutely is on him. And the same can be said about how long it took for him to really start making changes.
It also baffles me that we went from one of the best counter attacking teams in the world to a team that absolutely don't take counters in the span of 1 year. And how VVD seemingly has lost his ability to shift play quickly with a long pass. He used to be absolutely great at it.
About your goal for the season I agree.
CL qualification and a decent CL run this year was my goal before the season. To many changes to expect a title run. Something absolutely every pundit and expert agreed on before the Isak signing. It changed the narrative from the media about our season completely. They went from transition season to walking the title after Isak.
Exactly our situation isn’t solely Arne’s fault and sacking him wouldn’t fix it at the moment, instead set us on a manager roundabout
Bravo, one of the more sensible takes I've seen on this sub all season.
I agree with everything that Studge has said here. But he missed one thing out - the managers level has also dropped massively. His decision making has been shit this year (some would argue it started last year).
And that is arguably a bigger problem than the players not performing. Team selections. Playing style changes. Formation choice. Substitutions. All been shit.
Last night was a dogged performance and possibly the first time this season I’ve seen a Liverpool team that can hold its head high after a match due to the sheer hard work and effort put in to try and get a result.
The main issue I have is his subs.
I think he is starting to get back into the tactical decisions mid game - Arsenal being a good example of it but he’s still not as good as last season.
His subs though have sucked. I’m sick of them.
yesterday we had like a junior bench selection aside Jones, Robbo. Not subbing was a good decision this time, how many times he changed players and game went into the bin.
Kerkez I think is at the level we would've expected from Tsimikas, Wirtz has been very very good as well but doesn't quite fit the system to show his best. Frimpong is a completely different player from TAA, but when he's fit he's opened up our attack in a unique way.
I think the signings we made were very good overall, but the level of talent we lost in the summer was going to be impossible to replace and we were never going to start where we had been at the jump.
It's worth remembering that all this is a work in progress for the team as well. I think Slot was kinda fucked over by it being such a huge summer of change in the squad when realistically we needed some signings last summer, not to mention that none of the signings we made were like for like replacements for who we sold.
We all remember how Klopp had a habit of keeping some new signings on the bench or starting them a handful of times until they fully got an understanding of how we play (Fabinho being the best example), Slot hasn't been able to do that with the new signings, it's why I think Wirtz and Kerkez have struggled
I agree with what you said here, and I would add that I think the player we are missing the most this season is Diaz. We lack pace on the wings, he would just grab the ball and drag us up the pitch plus his finishing was improving, we are desperate for some of that again but outside of Rio (who is still young) I don't see where we get it from without a new player coming in.
Diaz was up top last season but sure
It was a fluid front 3 like PSG, but sure
What difference does that make? Your comment implies we lack Diaz as a winger, whereas his main position was CF. Strikers make runs into the channels / in behind on to the wings all the time. I agree with you other than you are misremembering his position
Salah and Diaz were an outlet, took the pressure of our back and could be accessed with a long ball. We were missing a lot of chances which is still better than now. Szobo added to that with his chaos press which was another outlet. Now if Frimpong can stay fit he can be a good replacement for Mo, (he definitely isn't a LB suited for the Prem) rather a winger and Kerkez can maraud on the left, but he needs Wirtz who completely understands him, and not Gakpo who mocks him.
We had a very settled team (remember, last season there was only 1 new signing and it was Chiesa) and suddenly changed half of it, while also making the squad smaller
It was always a hugely risky strategy, especially given how knackered our team were at the end of last season. Compare that to Arsenal who keep adding to their squad and its paying off for them massively.
indeed, but we all agree we wanted to sell those players, except 1. Nunez was being sold online non stop by the fans let's be real.
Mistakes were: doubling the 9 position and not convincing or raising Diaz to stay. His dream was Barca or La liga. ended up in Bundesliga, which is 2 steps inferior to where he was. Are you telling me Diaz workrate didn't register at FSG, and they wanted to sell no matter what? We couldn't offer him the same as Bayern? Our whole pressing was only Szobo, and Diaz ffs. Now if we put together Wirtz, Eki, Isak, Gakpo they don't equal one Diaz's workrate. Players that are "creative" don't really put in the shift.
IMO, it's not really about the 1-1 replacement, but more about how it changed the balance of the entire team.
As Sturridge mentions here, Diaz was tenacious up front, pressing.... which was the same thing with Nunez and Jota. All that hard work was what allowed Salah to have his defensively lenient role and perform at the level he did offensively. Now we have Isak, Wirtz and Ekitike, who I would argue that like-for-like are better individually than who they replaced, but we lost some of the pace, physicality and hard work.
I think we could see yesterday how much Frimpong contributed by having pace on the wing, something we have sorely lacked this season.
We have started to figure things out gradually over the season, but it takes time when the entire balance of the team changes, you got new teammates with new ways of thinking and with different strengths and weaknesses that players have to adapt to, on top of the grief of losing a friend and teammate in Jota.
It's also about the way we press. All three knew how we pressed which slot could adjust minimally. The new boys have to learn the timing and positioning. A late press is a useless press. If you don't cut off the right lanes or the right player, it becomes easy to play through. Plus with teams in the prem set up to negate the press, it was just a recipe for disaster.
It's great that we have recovered to where we are now.
Yes, this obviously matters, but even though Wirtz and Ekitike works fairly hard, they are not as tenacious as Diaz and Nunez. Isak is by no means a workhorse striker, and more of a goal scorer. In that sense he had pretty much the same role at Newcastle as Salah hah here last season, with somewhat lenient defensive responsibilities, and a team of hard workers around him
i feel like it was all Diaz, Nunez, Jota, and esp. Szobo who pressed properly. Now, Szobo is recharging his battery , cause he noticed the other 4 around him don't know how to press. it's quite straight forward, when the defender releases the ball, you start your press on the target. But you already have to be close to him otherwise you just empty the gas tank. But Jones somehow as a pro , still didn't "steal" the correct technique from Dominik Szoboszlai . Who has a text book press. Good positioning , good timing. and Jones still is ineffective with it.
Agreed. Less about 1 for 1 and more about the qualities those guys had and the chemistry they built up over three seasons together. I don't necessarily agree that the new signings are better individually IF you account for how well last year's team complemented each other.
But you are spot on that the players are needing time to adapt to one another. The frustrating part of all this is simply that management didn't need to go rebuild this season, they just made some costly miscalculations.
indeed and it's also about what is available on the market at that level, at that time.
But we need piano carriers with a fine foot as well. We can't have only magicians like Coutinho, Thiago, Wirtz. Our midfield was never successful with this type of player in producing silverware. We had success with tall, strong workhorses like Hendo, Szobo or shorter but stocky Milner type to provide a base for the strikers to score. Now we have 3-4 up front that only try to create, but without the ball they only act like they press.
Sure you give a pass for Salah when he was in shape, cause Szobo covered for him, but Szobo can't cover for Wirtz, Eki, Isak and co. alone.
Outside purists Milner is never talked about in young fan groups, but he was a better leader than VD.
He’s disingenuous. He’s not interested in the truth, he has an agenda he’s selling. He doesn’t want to agree with Sturridge as to the most logical and obvious reason, he wants to sell this “they’ve slacked off” narrative.
And not a single mention of jota, the impact that had both on the pitch and emotionally
Studge does mention Jota but it's not made this edit for some reason
Which is why neville completely crumbled as a manager because he doesn't actually understand the dynamics of what makes a solid and consitant team.
A lot of people on this subreddit aren't buying it either 😏
lol…after Sturridge shut him up with the proper reasons and was concluding his argument saying that the new players haven’t t performed at the level of the players they replaced. Neville went “But why?” 🤣
For me it's the fact that everyone who was here last season also looks levels below their own standards except for Alisson, genuinely every player on the pitch who has tactics they are meant to adhere to looks poor. Still a Slot issue for me.
He's an absolute void of common sense and footballing knowledge.
It's small-minded and he just wants to stick the boot in and try to increase pressure on Liverpool it seems like.
Love Studge & he loves us. Never stops supporting us even when he has something critical to say. He's right. We felt we had a great transfer window Wirtz, Isak, Frimpong, Ekitike but whilst we all knew that we would try to replace Trent "in the round" only the wisest saw Luchos loss as key. I know I didn't. Add to that or tragic loss of Diogo and we have the answer to why we're always on the back foot. Imagine the U shape build up with Diogo and Lucho darting about? It may not be as bad as we see now. Also our press! Again both were key.
Also fuck ratface neville
I want to mention my boy Darwin as well, good presser, yeah when he had a bad game he could not score against a rainbow but he always opened space for Mo and other attackers with his runs
I do feel we've lost something with the absence of Darwin. He was maybe not at the level we want to be BUT I feel we always felt more dangerous with him on the pitch. He reminded me of an old fashioned forward, a Bergkamp or a Gudjohnson to Mo's Henry. Big lad who pulls defenders out of position to give the other striker and forwards more space. Its not what Nunez did on the ball its what he did without it. Not a starter but he would have been a valuable squad player.
This is the thing, Darwin was an elite player in every way that wasn’t the most important for his position. He did so much and was somewhat similar to Bobby in the way he made our other attackers better due to his mere physical presence, especially Salah.
You can appreciate Darwin’s energy without calling him elite or comparing him to Firmino.
That is a wildly revisionist take.
Some redditors really have no nuance whatsoever, huh? The comparison to Firmino was in how Darwin made the other attackers better by occupying space and drawing their attention/pulling them out of position. It’s not a revisionist take, Salah benefited from it heavily to the point Salah named Darwin as the player he loved playing with the most.
No one is saying Darwin was the same player as Bobby, they can share traits without being carbon copies. I shouldn’t have needed to explain this but here we are, nuance is lacking it seems.
Elite speed, elite strength, elite general physicality, elite pressing, strong link up play. God awful finishing.
Exactly like I said, elite in ways that weren’t the most important for his position.
Amen brother. It's plain to see without that dogged pressing, the speed on the break that Nunez gave us, we aren't as dynamic without him. Teams were aware of that threat and whether he would score or not was almost irrelevant because it was the fear of what he could do.
I've always rated Darwin, shortcomings aside, and I agree he contributed a lot to make our attack better.
But he was no Bobby. They don't share any trait apart of pressing/intensity and making everyone around look better.
The guy barely played in our title winning season though?
His pressing wasn’t elite. That was a large reason both Klopp and Slot didn’t play him, perhaps you mean stamina, or ability to press? Tactically pressing was one of his weaknesses
33 goals and assists in a single season for Liverpool is elite. Simple as that.
Yeah Nuñez was great off the bench, essentially Chiesa has taken on Darwin’s role last season
Sturridge had the best celebration that 13/14 season. Just exuded so much joy with that inflatable arm dance thing. I mimicked every time he scored. And I bought that awful black white and purple kit that I love.That season was so fun
That celebration remains my favourite I have ever seen and continue to use it in 5 a side!
Not in our shirt, but that England one in Brazil was so sick. Was so happy for him. I remember the brazilians were hyped as well.
This is all good in theory but Slot clearly doesn't want an intensive press so it wouldn't matter anyway. Those guys would either stop pressing or they'd be on the bench.
Again Jota was perpetually injured. I think it's unfair to add him with the players that were constantly playing.
But what about the good ol days at United? Can we hear another story of what it was like?
Back when we played for the club we had Giggseh, Keaneh, Beckseh, Scholeseh, Butteh, Sasuage Rolleh Polleh and Rio as well! I remember Ferguson sticking two fingers up the arse of my brother bedause he was 2 minutes late for training! I said 'oi gaffer I'm three minutes late does that mean i get one extrah?'. It was different back then, it was Man united, it was the premier league! It's a disgrace!
I’m dying lmao
Tune into the Gary Neville Podcast to get the director’s cut
Sturridge is a breath of fresh air on TV. Great personality and he knows what he's talking about
Where the fuck is Quansah? Huh? Gary! Gary, look at me! Where the fuck is Quansah?
Gary being an absolute melt and not listening as per
We sold Diaz and Nunez and lost Jota. Three very good pressing forwards. We replaced them with Ekitike, Isak and Wirtz - three very different players and one who has been injured all season.
The other major outgoing was Trent and we replaced him with Frimpong, who has also had a long injury as has Bradley meaning we've had to play midfielders at right back.
I think quality wise we did ok with the replacements but they haven't had time to gel (also Kerkez got thrown into the mix) which hasn't been helped by injuries and the passing of Jota which heavily impacted pre-season and everyone at the club.
exactly this. not sure why this is so hard to understand for people. also salah clearly lost form this season and has been at afcon.
Because nobody can wait for anything anymore. Klopp got a couple of years to build a team before he started putting it together completely. Slot comes in and wins the league at his first attempt then wants to rebuild and there's already people calling for his head.
How tf are supposed to move on from the last great teams without some upheaval and disruption. We're literally transitioning right now with some pretty impressive future proofing purchases but God forbid they have to find their rhythm they should just win every game ever, are they stupid or what.
Maybe I'm just old I dunno lol. I watched us be shite since the nineties so a year of transition after a golden age of being a supporter is okay with me
For sure. The lack of patience from some fans is silly. Fact of the matter is the investment over the break wasn't targeting this season's PL. It's the start of a five-seven year play. Everyone spending money at the club would have it factored in that this should be our worst season of the new era.
I think winning the league did him more harm than good in this case. More people probably expected us to have season like this last year. Instead we didn't change much and won the league. Then we spent a lot of money and expectations were crazy high.
And I get that people are dissapointed. I'm also dissappointed. But some of the things people are saying are just stupid. Most really think that Slot is terrible and that most problems will magically dissaper if he's sacked. Some of the same people were saying he's a genious last season. But things are never that simple.
We've had a lot of changes, a lot of things happened and some problems were expected. We're also a bit unlucky wirh injuries, refs... And sometimes/most of the time things take time, after so many changes. Now Slot might not be the right manager/coach for us, time will tell. But people are overreacting
This is exactly my opinion as well. People have lost patience nowadays. This is a transition season, and it will take time. As long as we get top 4, I think it's perfectly fine to keep Arne. If we perform horribly next season, then the sacking of Arne can be understood.
But the football and tactics are shit.
We haven’t been shite since the nineties. Must have us mixed up with our blue neighbours.
We were shite from when I started watching in 95-96 until Klopp. Had a little period where we were looking like returning to the top but the cowboys made sure that didn't happen. Only having one of our greatest ever players literally carrying us on his back meant we won anything ffs. I still loved them though. Except bolo zenden. Had an irrational hatred for him. Oh and fuck diouf but that was more rational than irrational imo
When you're a kid your attachments to certain players can be so random. I used to like playing keeper in primary school and remember crying when we sold Westerveld, looking back I have no idea why lmao
This would all be very well and good if we weren’t also shit the 2nd half of last season.
We had the same number of points per game in the first and second half of the season. Before the league was wrapped up and the players went on holiday, we lost once to Fulham.
In the 2nd half of the season, teams adjusted to our tactics and made the games more difficult for us. Salah's goals and assists also fell away; however, that doesn't mean we were shit and it doesn't mean you get to rewrite history to suit a narrative.
Newcastle didn’t adjust to our tactics, they totally dominated us with their style of play. Same with PSG. I’m not rewriting anything either, I was saying it at the time.
Also don’t forget how the squad loved Elliott and Kostas as people. Just all of that takes time.
AND JOTA.
Of course, but he was mentioned by the post I replied to.
Most underrated part of the players who left is availability. As injury prone as Trent was during his last few years here, it's nowhere near Bradley's. Trent could also play 90 minutes every 3 days no problem. Same with Diaz and Nunez.
Meanwhile Wirtz and Ekitike need to be very carefully managed since apparently they can't play 90 mins every 3 days. Heck Ekitike even got injured already despite not playing that many minutes.
We should’ve kept Nunez as a sub and either bought Isak or Ekitike for Jota. Only time will tell if Isak and Ekitike will be able to play together.
We should have kept Diaz.
Ofcourse but he wanted to leave
> Nunez
Most people didn't think he was good though.
he wasn’t when it came to scoring goals, but he was a menace regardless
atleast he’d put in a defensive shift
Don't forgot he good at defending set piece + corner..
I didn’t either. But he put in a shift and pressed well. Ekitike is a better player but has a different skill set.
As a striker, he clearly wasn’t. He was here for years, and was consistently underwhelming. Revisionism at it’s finest.
We replaced robustness with technical players. The players we brought in are more skilled but just isn't as tough and hardworking as what we lost
Neville is such a moron, honestly. This bs narrative has got to stop. Studge is spot on here, it’s not exactly rocket science.
This is a brilliant vignette of this whole debate.
Sturridge brings the facts.
Neville needs to ignore them to support his biases. For him, it must be something deeper because he can't cope with Liverpool's success relative to Man Utd.
Honestly I was with Sturridge until he said Quansah was there when we needed him. He wasn't, he barely played, that's just an excuse.
Diaz has been a huge loss on terms of his pressing his creativity setting the tempo etc Trent is a huge loss in terms of necessitating a switch in formation to bring in a new attacking dynamic to replace him. For me Frimpomg isn't Trents replacement, Wirtz is. Unfortunately Wirtz is one of the incoming players that hasn't really clicked yet.
Don’t listen to Neville talking about us, 50% of what he says is ok but his bias is never that far off. Sturridge talking sense, our new signings haven’t all kicked on yet and how many times do people need to be reminded about the passing of Diogo. I’ll be happy with 4th and a cup.
God Sturridge is amazing, was always one of my favorites. He really put Neville in his place here.
Neville is delusional and Studge just lays it out.
Hes turned into one of my favorite analysts lately, hes really grown into the role.
The theatrics of one person putting another in his place are part of what they want from the pundits. Not disagreeing about Neville, but his stubborn insistence creates drama, and they thrive off of jf
Exactly this. I think the reason why Neville has such a successful media career is that he's prepared to say stupid, blunt, antagonistic things to get a conversation going, because most audiences don't actually want considered analysis, they want a debate to get angry about. I do find Neville pretty unlikeable, but I people calling him stupid are just playing into his shtick, and the whole pantomime of TV and radio football coverage. These days I tend to mute the TV from the moment the half-time whistle goes until the players come back onto the pitch.
We are a team in transition and this is all part of the bumpy ride
our outs include trent, diaz, nunez,quansah, elitotte and tsimi on loan and jota through tragedy every single one of them were crucial during points in both klopp's last season and slot's first...
yes weve bought some talent but also they dont do the things that made the others key ..today while they are seen as better players not one of those players pressed the way diaz nunez and elliott would have and we know that we know there would be know way the gooner goalie would have had the freedom he had today with the passes back to him cause one of those three would have been down his throat...
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The same Americans who have helped Liverpool win every top trophy in club football? Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to have a competitive league.
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Trolling rival subs, whether it is posts or comments, with the sole purpose of taking the piss and/or antagonising users is not allowed. It makes our user base look childish and incapable of self-control, creates headaches for moderators, and inspires reciprocal trolling. Since this rule was instituted across club subreddits, we have seen a drop in trolling. Any links to rival subs have to be 'np.reddit' links.
Good man Studge. He's absolutely wiped the floor with Neville there.
Gary Neville is completely irrelevant as a pundit. A failed manager and a nobody at united in a era when full backs were about as relevant as the canteen lady. His bias against Liverpool is clear as day. Shouldn't be involved in any Liverpool games. Can't understand how he doesn't get called out more on his bias. When Carragher comments on United, he's usually spot on, constructive, not really taking digs at them.
The fact is we lost a ton of players last summer. Studge didn't even get to mention Jota. But here's the thing, these are all players that were playing for by far and away the best team in the league last season and the 2nd best in Europe imo. These are players in their prime and they are world class. Imagine if united lost giggs, scholes and keane all in one summer, in their primes - they'd have been fcuking goosed!
I think that Wirtz, Ekitike and Kerkez are all good signings. I think they will all come good. But they all need time, just as the players we lost were given tons of time by Klopp.
Neville probably knows this but he's taking a dig and trying to destabilise us, like the rest of the scum supporters in the media. Hope they get another shite manager in and finally get relegated.
The problem is our signings didn't really fill the gaps of the players who left for the most part. We lost a very good winger in Diaz who provided that width and replaced him with a striker.
And then we get Isak who other than being injured all season is a striker completely different to what we have had from the pressing forwards of the past. And realistically need to build our entire system around him to get the most out of him.
Then we lose the most creative player in our entire team and replace him with a winger, who has also been injured basically all season.
Then we signed Wirtz who is a 10 in a team who didn't really play with a 10 and is realistically directly competing against McAllister, who was one of our best players last season. And due to that and the problems on the wings we have, Wirtz has played as a 10, 8, winger, striker, false 9, second striker during the course of half a season which is ludicrous. The best player we signed, has a different role every week.
So ultimately its a combination of a lot of things. We lost some really good players, we bought players who don't fit the current system we play and its been a work in progress, we have had a lot more injuries this season than last and we have had some regression from the likes of Salah, McAllister and Konate.
Ekitike is the best player we signed by a mile
It's interesting because I remember during that the Wirtz saga there was an article about the meeting with Slot where Slot supposedly convinced Wirtz with his clear plan on how to fit him in the team as opposed to what Bayern presented him.
We also haven't replaced Luis Diaz.
we need a CB, and a winger
Semenyo and Guehi would’ve been ideal, cheap prem proven players
Studge spitting facts though
I think not replacing Diaz was the big one. I understand why they sold but crazy we didn’t bring in a like for like. Look at the difference having a bit of pace in wide areas made yesterday with Frimpong at RW.
Judging by what studge said i'm not sure why he went and I know Gakpo has been alright but not amazing i'd prefer hin to have gone
LFC wouldn’t improve his salary I think was the main reason he wanted to leave. He deserved a bump based on his performances last season imho.
Seeing what Diaz is doing at Bayern, he deserved the pay raise.
For 33 winners of the prem, only 11 won it the year before. It's very difficult to retain a title.
Liverpool sold/lost key players, one in the most tragic of circumstances and brought in players who mostly haven't settled in yet. Isak has been unfit and Wirtz hasn't been utilised properly (although I'm quite happy with how he plays). Salah has fallen off massively, which cannot be planned for. Players like MacAllister, van Dijk, Konate and Gravenberch have dipped significantly.
I think the transfer committee made some mistakes. Primarily not bringing in more CB cover, a Diaz replacement and a more mobile number 6. But, like pretty much everyone else last summer, I was buzzing. I think this team will come good with the aforementioned additions but transition is usually painful in sport.
This team with a more explosive winger (Rodrgyo, Gordon or Barcola), a CB or two (Guehi and/or Schlotterbeck would be nice) and a 6 like Elliot Anderson or Baleba would be challenging on multiple fronts. Injuries aside, the starting 11's are pretty similar between the top teams but City and especially Arsenal have a much stronger bench. That needs to improve with the amount if games to be played.
Slot should be allowed time to rebuild this team. Last night was a very positive result as was Real Madrid as was Inter. We’ve had some very dissapointing results this season as we know but he has steadied the ship. It may not be the football we’d like to see yet as we appear a bit blunt but I have faith it will come. I thought last night Macca, Szobo and Grav looked more like their old selves playing as a unit which is huge. Let’s be positive we are not clusterfucks like Utd and Chelsea.
Sturridge is such a competent pundit. Love him.
Fair play Dan lad fair play... Great job and 100%
A lot of people on this sub need to listen to Sturridge here
Why is anyone still giving that clown air time
The circus show will get higher ratings and reaction.
If Liverpool have relaxed after winning the league then what have man UTD done since 2013?
Neville is a fucking cretin. I wish nothing but the worst for him.
Missing key players is one part of the reason. But there's a more serious issue that started mid season last year when Slot basically decided to abandon the high press bc (in his own words) we needed to "preserve energy to control the game better". What we see now is the end result of months of football tactic that is the exact opposite of what this team was built for over the course of 8 years. Need to bring back the energy if we're going to compete
People seem to miss the nuance that neville is literally being paid to say no in these situations. They are not pairing people up to sit there and go "yes i agree with everything... Next segment"
Whenever he does our games and it’s tight he’s always trying to jinx it with comments like.. oh Liverpool doing well here they should get a point at least.. he’s just a big sore loser and hates the reds
I actually think they're both right but Neville is being a twat in this clip not accepting that Sturridge is making a good point as well.
We've lost good players and replacements like Isak, Frimpong and Kerkez haven't come in and been able to consistently start and play to the same level. But at the same time the performances of players like Salah, MacAllister and Konate seem to have completely dropped off this season.
Ekitike is the only new signing who has really hit the ground running this season, and Szoboslai is the only player in the starting XI who I think has looked like a player who won the title last season.
Neville used to be a descent pundit there for a while. Last five - six years or so he’s utterly shit.
He's spot on studge he just hates being wrong neville 🤣
Also said us winning the Carabao became a platform for us winning the league. Forgetting we won a Champions League and a Premier League before winning the Carabao under Jürgen.
The man D_Studge. Mans a baller and a sound analyst. May his career as a football analyst be a fucking success...
Neville can fuck right off, we don’t give AF if you don’t understand a very simple concept
Really obtuse of Neville to take that stance on Sturridge's opinion - he's desperate for there to be more of a "story".
Liverpool sold a lot of "risk takers" like Luiz Diaz and Trent and the majority of new players aren't going to feel confident taking the same level of risk.
Dude just made more money than you and your family will make by selling overlap, because people kept watching his shows, talks about it. He doesn’t even need to try, the more obtuse he is he’ll get more views and these views make him more and more money
Yeah fair enough. At the end of the day his job isn't to give objective and fact based opinions, it's to sell himself / his personality to fans who click and watch.
I’d tell you guys to stop watching him and stop malding about him, and instead use the time to watch something educational, but it’s not like you guys can stop yourself
Sturridge is spot on here
Gary Neville would've been shit on Scooby Doo!
Do people actually enjoy listening to that prick Neville.????
I think it's a combination of all these things. There definitely seems to be a little complacency. We walked the league and you could see how the attitude of the whole club changed last year after we won it. The performances dropped and we all went on holiday, and we've never been able to get back to that level.
As Mac Allister said last week, we've changed too many things. Too many players have been sold and bought, and Slot has ripped up the game plan that worked for us for years. The players don't look anywhere near as sharp or fit as they did under Klopp, and there's no identity to the way we play anymore.
Given the circumstances a point was great yesterday. But the fact Slot didn't make any changes when we were on top shows me how scared he is. He could have brought on Chiesa or Rio to try and take the game when we were clearly causing Arsenal problems but he didn't. It rubs off on the players as well. Nobody turns and runs and tries to play forward anymore. Frimpong received the ball from Wirtz in the box, and instead of turning quickly and trying to score, he played it backwards out of the box. It's just possession for the sake of possession, it's don't lose at all costs, it's football that lacks courage.
It's hard to say why this is all happening. Jota, transfers, change of style of play of course are all inseparable now, but I do think there is a mentality thing that we've lost, it's obvious when you watch us play now compared to the Klopp era.
Neville when arguing with actual ball knowledge.
This was always ALWAYS going to be a transition year for us. Slot is secure if we hold onto champions league and our form is better. That second half vs Arsenal was actually good, if we had a striker or more clinical in form players that backed themselves who knows.
Next season and one after that are the years we should be proper no excuses title contenders.
Hell let’s see what form we can get together and how deep into the champions league we can go. That would shut people up.
Sturridge is spot on. We're a team in transition. Losing Trent and Diaz was much bigger than I initially thought.
Trent, understandably, is difficult to replace, there is no other RB who can do what he can do. Which is partly why we signed Wirtz, to replace that source of creativity. He had a slowish start to the season (while still being decent) but he's now clicking and is one of our best players. Not replacing Diaz, on the other hand, was a huge miscalculation. We lack that pacey and pressing winger upfront.
Even with that I think Wirtz on the left wing is him playing out of position. But hopefully we buy a left winger, we have been linked to Barcola from PSG but who knows
I hope we get a winger.
Why are they dressed as the fortnite version of matrix characters?
Ahh Gary. Does he know that even united fans don’t like him now? Constantly siding with the owners and throwing managers under the bus. Being an absolute prick.
I’ll take 4th and a CL trophy, call me crazy but we’ve done it with scrappier teams before
Neville with the most bullshit take about Liverpool. Color me surprised
Between Isak and Writz, we should have expected at least 20 G/A by now. But Isak was missing until he scored his first goal and got injured, and Writz is still trying to adjust to the league's physicality! Those are the most expensive signings in the league's history! Kerkez finally had a good defensive game! And now we are trying to play boring football!
Neville is a melt but he’s not wrong that a few of our players have champions hangover. It’s a real thing. It happened to City plenty of times. Sturridge is right as well.
He's acting like a bunch of early to mid 20s lads have the same mentality as Liverpool fans when it comes to winning our 20th title. It's insane. Those players will want to be as decorated as they possibly can be. He's fucking deluded
Yeh, Studge is on point here (he didnt have a particualrly good punditry night after this though - lost the run of himself at one point!) but yes, he has provided a solution to garys mystery. We did lose key players (not all of them mentioned by studge) and we’ve had to transition new, good, but qute diffferent players.
To my mind, last night was the best performance of the season.
The little man always shouts the loudest
Imagine you HAVE to listen to that nob just because canera is on you
Sturridge, what a breath of fresh air in the pundit world. Insightful honest opinions tells it how it is. Are you watching Mr Rooney? That's how its done. Better still give him the Utd job and we won't have to listen to his mumbled ramblings.
Plus there was need for changing your gameplan to accomodate your new signigs which makes it all even harder.
or u know ... we can be trying to find something rotten inside of the club and making big interesting stories about whatever just to make engagement.
Imagine making a living out of talking and being eclipsed by Dani boy in a simple evaluation of a season.
one thing is easing players in, one by one, another is: starting 3-4 new players at once. IN a new style of play, that the old guard need to adapt to asa well. Signings were not fit for the Prem, had no in game relationships with the main squad. Sturidge is another case of brilliant striker, but clueless pundit. you can't expect 4 new starters to click at once.
once our lads hit the ground rnning it will be a different story
Neville posing his opinion as an open-ended question smells like "Is he a pedophile? Some people say he is. I'm just asking." What a dunce. He already made up his mind that it's a mentality issue, ignoring the literal, factual evidence of the loss of key players not being made up for by incoming players.
Neville is such a fucking idiot
“I’m not buying that” 💀 For fuck’s sake
His name is Diogo
We miss darwin.
When Klopp got time everyone could see what he was trying tactically and it looked good. Under Slot we don't see that, we are seeing the opposite
I’ll never forget the ones here last year clamoring for Gakpo to get minutes over Lucho lmao.
I don’t think we got bad players in. We’ve seen with Wirtz that with a bit of time they can get more comfortable and contribute. Same with Frimpong an to an extent Izak. Kerkez has looked better. We’re still short on a CB and are overplaying Van Dijk and Konate as a result.
This season went a bit pear shaped, but I think the players we have will improve and the team will get significantly better. The remainder of this season is about staying in the CL and hopefully with a bit less pressure trying to gel and get the attack going.
They're all right. Sturridge is right as to why we're shit. Keane's right as to us being a long way off where we thought we'd be. And Neville is right that it's not acceptable.
If I came to this sub in August and said "Lads we're gonna be fighting for 4th and you'll be happy about it!" I'd have been sent packing, and rightly so.
The new signings have mostly been shit. The old guard have been shit. The manager has been atrocious.
Yet somehow, we're in 4th and we're able to nullify the best team in the land on their own patch, despite all the above.
So there is life in the old dog yet. The dog just needs throwing in an ice-cold pond to make it wake the fuck up asap.
Sturridge is correct about the loss of Diaz and TAA (and the fact that we did not really replace those skills sets) but he also says we are missing Quansah. Sorry, Quansah barely played last year. Only thing that made me question his reasoning here.
My only criticism for Slot is his decision making and player management this season. We have injuries because he overplayed key players and doesn't rotate. At times when we have the game, he'll make changes to the strategy and tank the match in injury time. Something for him to work on I guess.
The media is heavily talking about poor performance when we're in 4th. Those cunts are never satisfied. The way I look at it is if we're 4th playing shit, we must be godly when we get it together. How can you scrutinize 4th, there's 16 other teams below and they aren't shit? Get the fuck off Neville.
He belongs in his basement rubbing one out to the memories of his glory days rather than a football pundit on TV. I'm over the shit that pours out of his mouth, can't take it anymore.
Imagine thinking players getting injured with 15-20 games played and calling that overplaying them. If you assess this at the end of the season sure, but players who actually played the most like vvd szobo Gravenberch are all still healthy, the players who got injured like Isak and frimpong are injured by terrible tackles, and the opposition players escaped without even conceding a foul. Then theres leoni, who injured himself in the first game, the list with the same faces like Ali bajectic Bradley and jones gets injured from time to time it’s predictable even, and now even Endo is injured without starting any game other than cup games we threw away because we were in a poor patch.
Absolutely bonkers to say slot overplayed the players when not only its inane to even say it in mid season, it’s not like slots got much of a choice, I bet you are gonna say he should just start nyoni Rio and Fede like it’s something that wouldn’t have any consequences.
Just look at what mo did because he was dropped for 1 and a half games. Christ. And then you people are naive enough to think Rio and nyoni are good enough to start and teenagers like this won’t make a mistake each game that will cost us the game. Absolutely irresponsible to even say things like this
Most of the fans wanted Trent gone since ManU game, and some of the fans even earlier.
Salah set all the records, but Diaz was our best attacker? Yeah, no.
Quansah was there, when VVD and Konate didn't performed last season? Did Daneil even watched us last season? He barely played in first 3/4 of the season.
Thank you, Dan for defending the club, but this is complete BS.