Istanbul-shit

Not for the first time this season, that was another turgid watch. In fact we’ve been pretty dire in most of our games this season, the odd half here and there aside.

The same problems keep plaguing us – Konate’s poor form continues but we’re just so easy to play through, constantly relying on Alisson to dig us out of one v ones as he did again last night, against a team who have been the whipping boys of Europe in recent years and once again, we concede an early goal. I thought it was a soft penalty but it was given and we should have had plenty time to respond.

Ekitike was bright again before going off injured. Alisson was good again before going off injured and I thought Jones played well but apart from that nobody impacted the game and now we’ve lost our two best players so far this season. Not a good night.

In truth though, these last two results have been coming. We’ve been getting away with it, late goals papering over the cracks but that’s simply not going to happen every week and when you can’t keep a clean sheet, that’s a worry.

I thought it was a bizarre decision to play Frimpong over Salah and it didn’t work out and where last season we had the likes of Elliot coming off the bench and impacting games, we just couldn’t find a spark last night. We finished the game with so many attackers on the pitch yet created nothing and I never felt like we were going to score.

Slot finds himself under a bit of pressure for the first time in his Anfield career to date. He has to find a way of integrating Wirtz into the team in such a way that it doesn’t completely isolate Salah who’s struggling to have any impact on games whatsoever and we look suspect in both fullback positions.

Chelsea up next then and we really can’t afford a third straight defeat before the international break. For me, Robbo and Bradley have to come back in at fullback and we should start the game with last season’s midfield three of Dom, Macca and Gravenberch. Wirtz needs taken out the spotlight for his own good in my opinion and would benefit from a couple of weeks on the training pitch.

Whatever the boss decides, he has a job on his hands now but it may be that after changing very little last season, that this is the season of transition we’d anticipated happening last year. With all that money spent and quality brought in however, to be all over the place defensively and toothless in attack is really not good enough and we need to see the players step up against Chelsea this Saturday. Walk on!