Where does Slot go from here?

Having lost three games on the bounce, we all hoped that the international break had come at the perfect time for us and our players would return refreshed from a change of scene and determined to put things right against our most bitter rivals but alas, it was more of the same as we put in yet another absolutely turgid display.

It’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what the problem is, as there isn’t a single part of the team functioning properly at the moment. Our defence is error prone and costing us a goal in almost every game, whether that’s from an individual error or our complete inability to defend set pieces consistently. Our midfield is disjointed and can’t get any kind of control or effective possession in games and as for our forwards, they’re operating on the periphery of games and then when they actually are presented with good chances, they’ve been horribly wasteful. Salah has been the main culprit, his finishing has fallen off a cliff compared to what we’re used to. The one at Chelsea after Wirtz brilliant backheel and the one yesterday where Jones was already celebrating what he assumed was a formality for Salah, only to see him miss the target from six yards, much as he had against Chelsea.

He’s not the only one however. Isak is badly struggling to find a bit of form and although Gakpo scored yesterday, he missed an absolute sitter of a header, although he would also point to his luck deserting him as he hit the post not once but twice.

I’ve highlighted all this before coming to Slot in an attempt to be fair to the manager. He can’t account for Salah’s form falling off a cliff this season, or Gakpo missing headers from two yards. He can’t account for the lackadaisical running back from both Van Dijk and Konate in the lead up to the opening goal yesterday, or the fact Mama got good contact on the block only for it to just bounce off him and into the goal. None of the aforementioned, or the fact the referee should definitely have stopped the game for the head injury to Macca, are things Slot has any control over… BUT… there’s plenty he does.

The obvious one is team selection. To be honest, it would always be the way I would do things but when your team is as bad as we’ve been for a sustained period now, you have to pick players on form, over reputation. I can’t see that any of our forwards could make a case for starting ahead of Ekitike on current form but certainly not Isak. His return of one goal against a Championship team in the league cup vs Ekitike’s 5 goals and 2 assists in all comps, with 4 of them coming in the league is night and day, as are the general performance levels of the two. We look much more dangerous when Hugo is playing and he had more of an impact within 5 minutes of coming off the bench yesterday, than Isak had in the previous hour.

Then we’ve got Chiesa… Maybe one of our stat lads could look up what he’s averaging in terms of minutes on the pitch for every G/A he’s registering in the limited game time he’s getting but I’d be surprised if he’s averaging more than 70 mins for every G/A. He’s impacting games every time he plays and tangible impacts at that, in terms of scoring or assisting pretty much every time he plays, be that from the start or off the bench. When the team is so desperately out of form, surely you play the players who ARE in form! I mean this isn’t Origi and Minamino we’re talking about, who were never going to play week in, week out. It’s a young France international who we just spent £70 million on and this generations best Italian player, who has won the Euros and was player of the tournament to boot! He’s a player who’s proved his quality on the biggest of stages before and on top of that, his attitude is absolutely outstanding and a lesson to all.

Apart from the aforementioned form of Ekitike and Chiesa being far better than their teammates currently, what does it do to their morale to see players in wretched form constantly being picked ahead of them, when not playing as well as them and not working as hard as them either.

Midfield we see something similar. He’s one of my favourite players but Macca is another who has been in wretched form, while Jones has been impressive and improved us pretty much every time he’s played this season. He must be wondering just how bad Macca needs to be before he gets more opportunities from the start. Szoboszlai has been our only midfielder who’s really tried to grab games by the scruff of the neck these seasons but he’s spent as much time at RB as in midfield and that brings us nicely to defence…

What exactly would need to happen for Joe Gomez to get some game time? Konate has had a poor start to the season but when he has been hooked, Slot has opted to drop Gravenberch back to CB, however it’s actually more fullback I’m thinking. Gomez had an extended spell in both fullback positions last season and absolutely excelled in both, especially LB as I recall. We’ve had problems at RB with injuries and further issues with Salah not being on the same wavelength as his RB but he and Gomez have played together for a decade now and Gomez will play the position more conservatively to cover Salah’s defensive shortfalls.

On the other flank, Kerkez has looked totally out his depth in a Liverpool strip up to now. I never thought he should have come straight in to replace a club legend like Robbo as first choice straight away. He should have been made to earn it and had a gradual passing of the torch over the course of the season but if he is worried about a possible drop off from Robbo, Gomez has proved himself an excellent LB on numerous occasions throughout his LFC career. Even in terms of it making sense for the team, Konate has always been injury prone and has already had some issues in the department this season. If he picks up an injury then we’re going to need Gomez, yet are going to ask him to come straight into the team having had literally no minutes this season? What chance has he got?

To that end, I’m not a fan of Slot’s man management style and this isn’t revisionist in any way because I was calling this out last season as well. I don’t think he’s fair with all his players and certainly doesn’t treat them all equally and it must be very demoralising for some of them. So that’s selection… Now we get to the system. Or lack of it would probably be more accurate.

What exactly is our style of play? Our pressing is so passive and lackadaisical. There’s no aggression in it whatsoever and it’s been totally ineffective so that would suggest to me that they’re not being coached to really press high and aggressively the way we did under Klopp. Now, that isn’t necessarily wrong. We’ve never had a team with more technical ability in the PL era. Gone are the Hendo and Milner types, full of hard running and physicality but nowhere near the technical ability of the likes of Macca and Gravenberch. So if Slot wanted to mould us into more of a slick passing possession based team then I could understand that. Trouble is, we’re struggling to string three passes together and look utterly clueless in possession most of the time. There doesn’t seem to be a plan or specific style, players either aren’t making runs or if they do they’re not on the same wavelength as the man in possession. It’s more like we just pass it around and then hopefully someone pulls a bit of magic out the hat but we’re certainly not creating lots of chances or pinning teams back and putting them under severe pressure. Then we end up chasing the game, take a midfielder off and throw all our attackers on for a frantic final 20 minutes where we do then get some chances but it’s all very chaotic.

If we’re being honest, our early results papered over the cracks but we were getting away with it with the late goals, late penalties etc. We haven’t controlled and dominated a single game this year and that’s where it IS down to the manager to shoulder the responsibility.

Slot has a lot of credit in the bank on the back of his PL win and rightly so. He also has arguably the best owners in world football behind him, who never make knee jerk decisions, or panic because of a few bad results and so I’m not suggesting he’s going to be under too much pressure in the short term. Our owners and football operation understands there’s no magic wand. They’ll have known it would take time to bed in all these new players and the tragic loss of Jota only further complicating things for the manager. Our football operation is one of the few that applies common sense and I’m sure they aren’t demanding Slot wins the PL and CL this year on the back of the huge investment. They’ll have anticipated a year of transition and I think the only way Slot could potentially find himself under pressure is if it looks like we might miss out on CL, which is so important to how the club balances the books and while they might have factored in a bedding in period for the influx of players meaning we may have a trophyless season this year, I highly doubt they thought they’d add the likes of Wirtz and Isak to a PL winning team and not qualify for the CL at the very least.

Having said all that of course, it IS still Liverpool and you can’t just keep losing games. If he loses another 4 on the bounce with no improvement, the vultures will be circling. The other thing that would make me look over my shoulder a little if I was him, is that the club have effectively manager proofed the club with this squad. There isn’t an elite manager in the world who wouldn’t rub his hands together at the thought of working with this group of players and there isn’t really a system you could want to play that there isn’t a solution for within this squad of players. We’d be a little light at CB for a 3 at the back but we have so many options and versatile players in the squad, this group of players would literally suit anyone. To that end, I think we’d be the most attractive proposition in Europe for any top manager, should the position potentially become available. No rebuild needed, the most stable club out there and everything already in place for immediate success. Slot will know this and as he now faces the biggest challenge of his career, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Anyway, that turned into a novel that Alan’s ghostwriter would’ve been proud of so I’ll wrap it up. Frankfurt on Wednesday, which also happens to be my birthday so do me a favour eh lads? Walk on!