On Mo Salah, Arne Slot, and Liverpool’s Future

ARTICLE BY MATTY

Now that that’s out of the way, I’ve held my tongue for quite a long time on the struggles of Liverpool FC this season. A lot of concerns I had even last season were quelled when the league was won, despite a boring play style and a team that sputtered to the finish because of a lack of trust in players our bald dickhead of a manager felt weren’t good enough. Now Harvey Elliott’s career has gone down the drain because of it but I digress. Oh yes, my friends, this isn’t going to be one of my usual articles. I won’t be so pretty in my use of words. For a club like ours to fall so far in so short a time frame, not only do heads have to roll like we’re back in Saudi, but we also cannot treat the situation nicely. I’ve oftentimes believed being nice is a bad character trait. Being nice in my mind is letting yourself be a pushover, living on the whims of others and pushing the truth aside for the sake of keeping peace. Being kind is to be everything that a nice person is while also keeping the sword of truth close by. Holding people accountable for the mess they’ve created. I won’t be nice today, but I will be kind. The sword of truth comes for us all eventually.

On this episode of “My Mother’s Almost Always Right and I Need to Realize This More Often”, she was furious at the start of the season when all the new players started the first game against Bournemouth. She went on and on about how disrespectful Slot was for nailing Endo, Jones and especially Robertson to the bench. How they’d no longer want to play for him because of it. How they were being told that “you won me a title, now fuck off”. She always hated Slot right from the moment we hired him. She thought he was too nonchalant and boring, that he would get found out and crumble. In hindsight, she’s Nostradamus. I also think there’s legs to the idea that players just don’t want to play for him anymore. Especially after the Salah interview. My opinion on that might be more explosive than the interview itself.

Why would you want to play for a manager who doesn’t bother to establish a relationship with his players? Especially after being managed by Klopp, who was practically a father figure with how close he was to his boys. Why would you want to play for a manager who constantly throws players under the bus? It’s not just Salah. It’s been Robbo, repeatedly. It’s been Kerkez, Frimpong, Trent, Quansah, Nunez. But his golden boys Wirtz and Isak, Virgil and Gravenberch and Gakpo, they’re immune from criticism despite being absolute dogshit all season long. That’s another thing about this situation that bothers me. How has the entire team besides Alisson and Szoboszlai turned into complete and utter dogshit? This never happened under Klopp no matter how bad the injuries were. There was a sense of fight, of passion, that is nonexistent now. In the Klopp days, players stood out amongst the shit they were dealing with. Now the players under Slot are just shit. His chosen team has us below a rebuilding United in the league table. How the fuck is he allowed to mangle the careers of these players even more than he already has?

Slot’s treatment of his veteran players, the Klopp era stars, should’ve been under more scrutiny from the start. I apologize for not leading that charge more fervently. I think we were all blinded by the initial success of Slot, we didn’t notice the disrespect of Robertson which was made very clear from the start of his tenure. Or Quansah, a young CB who we could absolutely use right now given the lack of depth at the position which everybody and their mother KNEW would be a problem as soon as he was sold. The clear preference of certain players in the team was surely not something that sat well with the rest of the team. Especially this season, players getting start after start after start despite being absolutely horrible. Robertson said he was all set to leave in the summer, the only reason he’s still here is because Jota’s death left a leadership vacuum he needed to fill. I still guarantee he’s gone on a freebie, there’s a reason we loaned out Tsimikas instead of selling him like Quansah and Elliott and others.

This summer in general should’ve been a warning sign for us. We got caught up in the splendor of all those new record signings without a concern for where they’d fit into the team. We gutted our depth in order to get Slot more players that he trusted, only to realize that players like Diaz in particular aren’t easy to replace. Diaz’s pace was vital to our attack last season, speed is a game breaking quality that Klopp always made sure to reload in order to keep his style of play viable. Slot preferred to slow things down from such a breakneck pace, and he seemed to find a nice balance last season. After all, we won the league. However, I think Slot took the wrong conclusion from last season. He won last season with a team that Klopp built. Slot just optimized it for better results, which is admirable. Not many managers are humble enough to swallow their ego and keep things humming along. Too bad Slot isn’t all that humble after all. In gutting the team and adding a bunch of new pieces, he took a hacksaw to what won him a title and decided to do things his way. As a manager is allowed to do, but in a results based business it is quite a gamble. A gamble that has spectacularly backfired.

Every one of Liverpool’s signings was a typical Liverpool signing: opportunistic, targeting youth, and ensuring a player’s prime is under contract with the club. There was one notable exception, though. The pursuit of Alexander Isak meant that we got the best striker in the league last season. It also meant we got a player who threw tantrums at both Newcastle and Sociedad in order to get the move he wanted. Klopp’s previous “no assholes” policy was thrown out the window for Isak, who seems rather lazy up to this point. Hugo’s working his arse off, I could argue the rest of the team is working their arse off. Isak doesn’t seem to be bothered. For a team dependent on pressing from the front (we’re more dependent on this than we ever were under Klopp, which is a dangerous and borderline suicidal tactic but I digress), having the striker who leads the press go around on a morning stroll isn’t good. However, to be fair, we also play too deep and can’t ever give him a good shot on goal. We have the best chance creator and best goal scorer in the world last season, in their respective prime, and we can’t get anything out of either of them. It says a lot about how fucked up the tactics, team, and manager have become.

Given that my feelings about Slot have been made abundantly clear, you can imagine my feelings about Salah are perhaps a bit different than the rest of you. Salah’s a fantastic player, but if the team was doing well I’d say he’s having a laugh. That interview was not for the betterment of the club, but rather himself. A cry of desperation, perhaps, a former legend slowly losing his legs and trying to hold onto past glory while the club falls further and further off the perch it thought it had finally claimed. Here’s the thing: while I think the way Salah made the claims was improper, he is probably absolutely right about what goes on in that room. Slot has made it clear repeatedly that he does not care for being a friendly manager, a father figure like Klopp he is surely not. It doesn’t surprise me that as soon as a player’s form goes down, he gives up on the player and stops talking to them. It’s why he sold all our youth. It’s why Quansah was deemed not good enough after one half of football against Ipswich. It’s why Elliott was given a chance in the preseason, but then sent to the reserves after picking up an injury. Young players need to be nurtured, not punished. Perhaps even veteran players, in uncertain times and situations, need a calm hand on the back rather than a whack over the head.

There was also a particular point Salah made in the interview that got overlooked. He asked “Why does Harry Kane fail to score in ten games and get told by the media ‘it’s fine, he’ll figure it out’, yet when I fail to score in five games, they tell me I need to be benched and sold?” To be fair, he makes a point. Salah’s had a ridiculously high standard, and while he hasn’t been up to that standard this season, it’s worth remembering just how incredible his production has been for a winger. Most players who score close to 300 goals for a single club are poachers, not chance creators. Strikers, not wingers. Not to mention Salah’s constantly double teamed, oftentimes fouled without ever getting a call, and yet he just keeps going. He’s the reason we won the league last season. Perhaps also the reason we only won one trophy. This team became too dependent on him. It wasn’t like previous years where you had Firmino and Mane, or Jota (RIP) and Diaz in depth roles rather than being the stars of the attack. Salah had to carry the load for most of the attack. It sputtered when he couldn’t, and even with supposedly higher quality around him, the same thing has still happened.

Regarding Liverpool’s future, Salah’s interview is a damning indictment of where the club seems to be heading. If Salah feels disrespected enough to never play for the club again after AFCON, that’s his choice and we should honor it by selling him to the Saudis. No player is bigger than the club, and while Salah should hopefully be kept and this whole thing should hopefully brush over, maybe there’s no way for either Slot nor Salah to come back from that interview. As for Slot, I don’t think he has any answers. I respect the recent results against Inter and Brighton but I also owe that more to the individual brilliance of Szoboszlai and Ekitike rather than a consistent tactical structure that breeds success. If Slod had any answers, we would have seen them by now. The tailspin would’ve been resoundingly curtailed. Instead we’ve continued to drift further and further away from the perch we were supposed to have finally conquered. At this point unless there’s a miracle run in the Champions League, there’s no trophies coming this season. Now we get to treat this season like a full transition year. Say goodbye to Salah and Robbo, most likely. Virgil and Alisson might not be far behind. The old guard is starting to age out, and I admit I’m deeply concerned about a lack of leadership in the new group that’s here. Szoboszlai should probably be the new captain when Virgil is gone, if you ask me.

The Liverpool way, the fight we used to show, I haven’t seen that from anyone lately. Time rolls steadily onward, and we’ll never get back what we’ve lost, and I’m concerned that the Liverpool I grew up watching, the hard-charging marauders of the Klopp era, the mentality monsters, the spirit of that team is gone. It’s been replaced by something much more robotic, tempered and sullen. I miss the joy our players used to have. The passion, the fight, the will. I think that’s why I’m hopeful a new manager comes in soon. Xabi Alonso looks likely to get the sack at Madrid so there’s a hopeful option. I want the old Liverpool spirit back in the team. I think that would galvanize the ship and get players back to playing at full potential