Arne Slot. Myths and lies

ARTICLE BY ALAN CRONIN

Social media and the selective short memories of football fans never ceases to amaze me. Liverpool are on one of their worst runs in history and the buck stops with the manager. Unfortunately football fans adopt a scatter gun approach looking for things to blame for what’s going wrong . The manger is always the first target. Everyone is piling on and nobody wants to hear a few truths so i thought I’d have a crack and debunk a few common myths.

I was reading comments last year on This Is Anfield when things were going so well and Slot was declared a tactical genius but as often is the way they can’t just leave it at that. These fans only ever praise when they are looking to put someone else down. You see Jurgen Klopp was a failure to these because Slot was romping to the title in his very first season and Klopp only won it once in 9 years and wasn’t a good tactician, just a cheerleader type manager. I remember calling them out then that this would come full circle and at the first hint of trouble their sights would turn to Slot. They didn’t disappoint and of course now Klopp was a God never made mistakes and they want him back.

As usual facts go out the window and hearsay and ” opinions” rule the roost. Somebody says something in the media and it gets regurgitated ad nauseum by fans. I’ll start with the worst two .

1 Slot won it with Klopps team.

This became a thing last season and was started by rival fans as a way to undermine Slots achievements. As is usually the way when things go wrong Liverpool fans pick up on these too. A lucky manager that fluked the league. You don’t fluke a league title, some would have you believe it was easy and all Slot had to do was pick the team. In reality Slot quickly put his stamp on the team. Gravenberch being the most notable change . A player bought by klopp but rarely used and certainly not the 6 that would go on to have a remarkable season. He quickly found out that Nunez wasn’t up to it and only handed him 8 league starts all season picking Jota ahead of him or playing Diaz through the middle. Slot was the man tweaking things when we were losing, turning games around .A much more controlled style than Klopp too and Liverpool went on to break records everywhere and proudly sat on top of England and Europe. A few things that stood out about his management style was if you weren’t good enough you didn’t play and rotation was nowhere to be seen. It was a policy that could have cost us the league and possibly cost us progress in other competitions but ultimately it was these decisions that won us the league. Klopp failed to win the league with this team. Another fact not opinion.

2 The great Sobaozlai hysteria at rb and playing players out of position.

How exaggerated has this been. He’s only played there on a few occasions out of necessity and everyone thought it was a masterstroke after the Arsenal game and we’ve lost more games with him in the middle with the old midfield . Of course these facts aren’t important when you’re looking for something to blame. Gravenberch can’t play at cb its scandalous I tell ya . No other manager would do these things ( hes been switched there twice in the second half of games).

Jurgen Klopp , James Milner left back entire season, Cody Gakpo centre forward entire season Fabinho, Henderson cb partnership. Pep Guardiola Matheus Nunes Rb Nathan Ake often lb John Stones entire season in midfield Ikay Gundogan centre forward. Mikel Arteta is currently playing a back four with four cbs. Arne Slot is not the first manager to play players out of position, this is not new

Like I said , selective short memories . I remember conversations here in the summer around transfers when people were telling me we didn’t need Isak and another striker. We have Frimpong that can cover Mo at Afcon and soboz can play rb and Veertz can play up front. We have loads of players that can fill roles. Same people now, Slot needs to come up with a position for Veertz and stick to it( hes played on the left twice) and Soboz should never play at rb. Who’d be a manager eh?

3 Revisionism over summer transfers, too many changes to Klopps team and blaming everything on the new signings.

This is another explanation as to why things are going wrong. Slot tore the heart out of the team and signed the wrong players.The truth is Hughes and Edwards bought the players with Slot as part of the process. Why would he argue and say no I dont want all these world class players. Apparently now we signed bad players but in the summer everybody was thrilled as we had bought best in class in every position. In reality the club didnt have much choice and a partial rebuild was needed. We all know what happened with poor Diogo. Trent a player that bore the brunt of blame for every defeat over the years wanted out. Diaz a polarising figure that was often criticised for a lack of end product , never hit the heights of Mane and wanted out. Best of all though I’ve heard is we miss Nunez physicality and the players we bought are wimps. Nunez had become a joke figure in the pl for a failure to hit the net and 90% of fans wanted him gone long before last season. He started 8 pl games last season but ya we miss Nunez.

In truth there hasn’t been wholesale changes , the spine of the team is still intact and weve only seen as many as 4 new signings play at once in a couple of games. The last few games only 2 new signings were playing. Arsenal and City brought in even more players.

Slot needs to go back to basics, play the old team and we will win . Hes done all this, nothings changed. People are talking now that Gomez, a well past his peak Robbo and Endo are some kind of miracle cure. The narrative changes every week but surely the problems are much deeper than these simplistic excuses.

4 Klopp improved players and Slot has turned them into duds. Koante Diaz Gakpo Mo Gravenberch Sobozslai and Macca all had their best seasons under Slot

5 Slot not taking accountability and pinning the blame on players. Has he? he may have called Ekitike foolish for taking his shirt off but I’m pretty sure I remember fans absolutely slamming him for the same incident. The only other time I recall him maybe calling out a player was for Frimpong stepping out from a corner that Palace scored their winner but I saw it as a way of defending the other players that were being scapegoated. Ive heard him dismiss criticism of individual players and prefer to put the blame on the team collectively. In recent press conferences hes categorically layed the blame at his own feet and said he is the one responsible for the ridiculous situation we are in.

I’m not a happy, clappy supporter that believes the manager is immune from criticism and Slot has plenty to answer for and needs to find solutions quickly but I’d also like the criticism to be fair and factual.

At what point are fans going to call out the players . Slot isn’t telling them to go out on the pitch and dodge tackles and not put in the effort. You could say thats up to him to motivate them but then these players should be able to motivate themselves also. Rumours going around that he has lost the dressing room for the last month and if that is the case these players are a disgrace . You play for the club, the fans not the manager. At what point do they stop feeling sorry for themselves. Why have they all of a sudden fallen out with the manager when he was good enough last season. Wether any of this is true who knows.

I feel there are plenty of problems behind the scenes but not many are down to the usual stuff that gets trotted out every week regarding team selection and new signings.

I’m not sure where I sit on the using Diogos passing as an excuse but I think its pretty low of supporters to suggest they are using it as an excuse. I dont think the players are good enough actors to fake the visible upset we have seen particularly from Mo, Robbo, Virgil and others. I also heard that the grief counsellor is still at the club so I’d believe it is having some part to play. Maybe also the drop off in intensity at the end of last season was hard to shake off.

Id like to see the manager cut a little slack and given time to work with the players to fix this. Some fans say you need to be ruthless because you need to win at all costs every year. Retaining a title is not easy and since the 80s only Fergie, Pep and Mourinho have manged it( Mourinho once). In fact Liverpool have not retained any trophy since the mid 80s. People say that supporters like me are far too sentimental but sentimentality is in the DNA of this club, its what makes us different. Ive always liked Slot the man too and felt he gets the club in the same way Klopp did fights our corner and seems to have a knack for saying the right thing just like Klopp.
League winning managers are hard to find. We’ve managed to find two in 35 years, I’d hate to see us throw one away so easily and wait another 35.

Token YNWA, not that it means anything these days.

Edit, after last night’s shitshow I think hes on borrowed time and the axe could follow shortly but I still feel the same.