21 Oct 2025 01:18:56
Ed1, when you say that there is a gaping hole in the middle of the park when we're having the ball, is that the way Slot want the players to play? Or is it more on the midfield players not knowing which one of them need to drop, when to drop and when or whom to push forward?
I don't remembered this being in play last season, there's always someone usually Grav that stay there to get the ball from CB and advance the ball. Someone just posted a picture below title 'The Horseshoe', and it looks weird and awkward even to a non football fan.
{Ed001's Note - it was certainly a tactical ploy against Man Utd, Slot would have changed things at half-time if it hadn't been. I do not understand why anyone would think it was a good idea to have a player as slow as Macca go so far out of position leaving a huge gap. Clearly the plan was to have Szobo invert and cover the space, but it didn't work at all. It just ends up with all the players except the centre-backs up in a line, with no space for them to move the defence around. As soon as the ball is lost, there is no cover.
I am hoping it was just an aberration attempted for that one game and it will be dropped from now on. We can't press with a half-fit Isak and a woefully out of form Salah, so we need midfield cover to protect the defence. I really don't think you can get away with both Salah and Isak together, especially when Isak is so clearly miles off fitness. But then Isak should not be starting while Ekitike is in good form and he isn't. This is how title challenges are blown, by trying to shoehorn players in, rather than just trusting in who is playing well and making the rest wait their chance.}
21 Oct 2025 02:00:38
With Isak and Ekitike - if you've got two gun players for one position, it would seem to me to be an absolute balls-up to play one over the other for reasons other than form, or perhaps tactics.
Playing Isak when he is unfit and not firing, in the hope he will develop his fitness in-match and find his form, must be a killer for Ekitike who has started so well.
Surely to keep that competition alive, you reward the player in form. otherwise i think we run the risk of alienating the player who is being left on the bench while they're playing well.
21 Oct 2025 03:48:29
Slot said Isak is "fully fit. " We have to take his word for it. The way we are playing is not playing to his strengths imo.
We were all scratching our heads wondering why we were bringing in Isak after signing Ekitike. There must have been a masterplan right to play them together. Surely we're not spending 200m for two top strikers to put one on the bench. We're not City or Chelsea.
But here we are 2 months into the season with no clear picture for what the club were or are thinking or Slot for that matter. I thought they would interchange LW and ST or play both in front of Wirtz which looks like the clear solution all along.
Have to feel for Ekitike he linked play really well, showed some fantastic footwork, pressed and scored some important goals. Then he's dropped and has to watch Salah and Gakpo fail to impress.
You would think there were some conversations over the summer between Slot and Hughes Edwards etc. with the potential signings and what he wanted to take the club forward. It's as tho the right hand wasn't talking to the left to steal a metaphor. But I can't imagine that being the case at all. I'm sure all parties were onboard with the incomings and outgoings and it was all agreed and rubber stamped etc.
But clearly it's not working and frankly I don't see any signs that it's going to work unless Slot completely changes his approach. It's pretty depressing seeing all of this going on especially when the solutions looks so clear and obvious (sorry) yet like PGMOL the coaches just can't see it.
I see GVB being mentioned on here and I hope to god it's not another "is pep running the show" sort of a thing. Slot needs to be his own man and carry the can. His tone yesterday was in stark difference to what we have been used to. Understandable but he has to show a ruthless streak here now, which he has done in the past, and put his foot down and be fully responsible for setting up the team for success and not for failure, which is what he's done so far this season.
I feel that Slot focuses way too much on the strengths of the opponent and maybe that has a negative effect on the players. I remember the PSG game last season in Paris he talked them up so much ie we won't have much of the ball, that I thought maybe it affected the players mentally before going out onto the pitch. Just what I thought at the time and just my opinion.
Super frustrated and a little bit hurting at what's going on. I hope they sort it out soon but if Slot doesn't change tactics and personnel the pain may well continue.
{Ed078's Note - nice post.
21 Oct 2025 04:09:39
Thx 78. Appreciate that!
21 Oct 2025 05:24:36
That's a good point you made about Slot, Red Flyer, about him focusing too much on the strengths of the opponents. I don't think it affects our players mentally much but it affects the way he sets the team out to play which sometimes, runs contrary to our own strengths as well.
I believe he should be focusing on our strengths instead and set the team out to play our strengths instead of worrying too much about how the opponents would play and set out to nullify them.
21 Oct 2025 06:42:24
Noticed on Sunday Frimpong came on and put some nice balls into the box all after Isak had come off and Etitike was dropping a little deeper.
21 Oct 2025 06:55:57
Another thing I’ve noticed about Slot also. He doesn’t “use” Anfield to his advantage.
If there’s anybody who goes the odd game down the years will know what I mean. He doesn’t use the Fans. If anything when it’s about to boil, he subdues the atmosphere and slows everything down again.
21 Oct 2025 07:17:08
Against PSG I'm not so sure it was a case of respecting the opponent too much, we were tired in the away game and didn't expect the intensity of the game. In the home game we had an unrelenting high press the first 25 minutes and should have been out of sight within the half hour, somehow we didn't score the goals we needed to, conceded and things became that much more difficult. That was the point at which a lack of rotation really bit us in the arse as we all remember, the Newcastle game was lost because we just ran out of mental and physical juice after the exertion of playing PSG.
The PSG home game proved that we can put opponents to the sword the Klopp way if we want to, but I just don't think Slot is ever going to do that consistently because it's just not his style, he plays every game with the rest of the season in mind.
Looking back at the game against United, I can't help but feel like the competition between Isak and Ekitike is not helping the team (besides the obvious point that Hugo should be the one playing), even when they were on the field together every time Ekitike got on the ball he looked like he wanted to score to make a point, it didn't look like there was a chance he was giving the ball to Isak even when the ball was on.
And yeah JK, the perfect cross that Frimpong put in right after he came on was the biggest miss of the game by Gakpo. Frimpong has one trick but he does it extraordinarily well, that change of pace and drop of the shoulder to get to the byline and float one into the box, it's not always a great delivery but the success rate is very high.
21 Oct 2025 07:40:36
I don't think Frimpong will work as a conventional RB for us but he's so impressive going forward. Rapid off the mark, happy to go outside players and can put very nice crosses in. I'd happily see him start at RW for a few games. I think Chiesa looks better as a LW anyway.
21 Oct 2025 07:43:22
We as fans never seem to say we lost to the better team on the day. We are the only team that loses because we failed to put our chances away, officiating, ran out of steam or so on.
In my humble opinion we lost to PSG over two legs on pens which could have gone either way and we lost to Newcastle who on the day were the better team.
Utd weren’t the better team on Sunday but with how we played neither were we.
We had enough chances to win against Palace, Gala, Chelsea and Utd but on the other hand they also had enough chances to have put us to bed as well.
21 Oct 2025 08:28:44
Newcastle were better than us on the day but we were also gassed jk, I think both things can be true at the same time.
Against Chelsea, united, gala and palace, I would say palace were superior to us in the first half by far but that was also because we were tactically inept. Gala was a bizarre game, it was barely a football game at all but neither side actually deserved to win, we were the better team but by a very small margin. Against United I do think we did enough to get a result, but Bruno really should have scored to make it 2 for them before we created a load of chances of our own in the second half.
Against any team we show that we have the quality to create and to score, it's not like we've been hopeless going forward, even though our finishing has been utterly disappointing. The problem is that this quality is more the unquestionable quality of our players in moments rather than the quality of a coordinated approach. We have a lot of instinctive, improvisational players now, but the problem is we're not even putting them in the best position for this improvisation to thrive.
21 Oct 2025 08:35:20
Good points, JK.
PSG were a better side than us last season and they went on to win the competition.
Newcastle outplayed us in the League Cup final, too. They got stuck into us, got a two lead and that was enough for them to defend.
There will be better teams than us and weaker teams that will better than us on the day.
21 Oct 2025 09:17:00
Pat i agree that both things can be true mate but Newcastle was a good 5 days after the PSG game.
We played PSG on the 11 Mar and Newcastle played West Ham on the 10 Mar so had 1 more day rest. Appreciate our squad had played more games but if they were that gassed they recovered well as they went on to win 4 of the next 5 league games to sew the league up.
21 Oct 2025 09:36:06
If Frimpong isn’t going to work as a fullback then we may as well him in January.
21 Oct 2025 09:49:54
'he has to show a ruthless streak here now'.
He certainly has done that. with Quansah and Bradley, though. Way to go if you ask me in order to ruin two academy prospects breaking into the first team
With Konate, Mac or Salah. well that's a whole different thing.
Indeed, it doesn't look like Slot is going to drop them any time soon. Why would he if they won us the league last season? I bet he feels vindicated and will play them every week not matter what.
21 Oct 2025 10:36:22
Kameron, and your last sentence is what I fear. Slot trying to prove a point rather than doing what is best for the team and playing players who are in form in a system that suits them. Klopp did the exact same thing in 22/ 23 for the disaster we knew it to be.
If Slot is going to do that just to try to prove a point and things get worse then, he will be solely responsible for his own demise and that of the team. Just saying.
21 Oct 2025 10:46:14
I did post a couple of times last season about Slot not fully appreciating the power of Anfield. The Anfield washing machine is legendary, but it's not being used.
He did also say at the start of last season that the way we set up depends on the pressing structure of the opposition. So none of this is a surprise.
However, it does also mean we get slow starts as the team is figuring out the opposition.
On top of all of this, the Premier League teams are getting more creative with their pressing structures. We've gone from gegenpress, to De Zerbi-ball/ press-bait to now something else evolving that involves more long balls, set pieces and throw-ins. Teams seem petrified of overloads.
Bournemouth seem to be the only team in the PL that are still pressing without abandon.
We have a physically capable team so we cannot make excuses about not . We should take the game to teams when they come to Anfield at the very least.
Re the line up and system - the profiles of the fullbacks do not match the system being implemented. We don't have a stable of pseudo CB/ fullbacks to call upon like Arsenal (Califiori, Timber, White, Hincapie) or City (Gvardiol, Ake, Khusanov) so Slot will have to change his idea as he cannot keep asking Bradley and Kerkez to be what they are clearly not!
21 Oct 2025 11:12:04
I just think it’s simply Slot trying to recreate the team structure we had last season. Even putting Szob at right back he’s trying to recreate having Trent there who was essentially a midfielder playing right back.
The problem is we obviously miss Szob in midfield and don’t have anyone else with his energy or pressing ability.
Nobody was scratching their heads as to why we went after Isak. It was plainly obvious to everyone. We lost Nunez and Jota so we needed 2 strikers it really is as simply as that. Added to that we lost Diaz who did play as a false 9 for large parts of last season. If we’d ended up with just Ekitike it would’ve been a disaster.
The difference now is that with Isak up top we have a proper striker. One of the very best around in fact but the team have played with a false 9 for so long that they need to adapt. We tried Nunez up top and it didn’t work so we reverted back to a false 9 with Diaz there. Now we have no choice we’ve signed 2 number 9’s so we need to get used to getting wide and providing them with service. We haven’t done that for years.
I do understand why Slot has done what he’s done in the last few games though, he’s under pressure so he’s gone back to the tried and trusted but when it doesn’t work he just seems to change way too much mid game. To the point where nobody knows where they should be. It has worked in the past when we’ve needed a goal and he’s been lauded for it but it also leaves us exposed to the sucker punch which has happened in the last 3 premier league games.
We’ve also lauded him for feeling teams out in the first half then tweaking tactics to beat them in the second half. Again it has worked in the past but the one thing you can’t do if you are going to do that is concede a goal which we have done in the last 4 games.
It’s time to just go at teams from the start. Wirtz needs to play, forget Trent and the midfielder at right back that’s gone. Play Bradley or Frimpong, get wide and get balls in the box. Tell Salah his role is no longer the main goal scorer he needs to become more of a traditional winger and supply the strikers. Stay wide unless there’s an opportunity to cut in and shoot. Same with Gakpo on the other side. Use the overlapping full backs, actually give them the ball when they make the runs.
Get the midfield making late runs into the box they’re much more difficult to pick up than if they are already on the last line.
Slot basically needs to forget about the team structure from last season, that has gone. We are a different team now so we need to play differently.
21 Oct 2025 11:13:59
Pelican, hopefully Slot can hear you cos it's all on him now.
21 Oct 2025 11:51:32
Slot proved a point last season when he won the League by playing Konate, Mac and Salah.
There were times when they were out of form last season, too.
Drop them, by all means, but don't expect Gomez, Jones/ Endo and Chiesa to show us anything we don't already know about them.
They are not in form players.
The Plymouth and PSV games last season also proved a point.
21 Oct 2025 13:01:37
Absolutely spot on Rigsby. They say you are always a better player when you’re not playing.
21 Oct 2025 15:21:06
What do we know about Gomez, Jones, Endo and Chiesa? Endo has been superb at times for us, granted mostly under Klopp, Gomez did a job every time he was called upon in the back line last year, Jones had at least two man of the match performances last year and his performance last year against Chelsea was one of the more memorable midfield performances for us in my mind, Chiesa has had 3 goal involvements in 6 matches with very little playing time, which would contest your statement that he isn't in form. Or are you only in form when you play 90 minutes a week?
I simply can't get down with the suggestion that Chiesa only deserves 10-15 minutes a game, what else does he need to do to stake a claim to at least 45?
21 Oct 2025 17:34:48
PB, I disagree with your assessments of Gomez, Jones, Endo and Chiesa but they are your opinions which is fair enough.
I don't remember Endo being superb or Gomez doing very much in the back line last year. Jones did well against Chelsea but it was hardly memorable. When I think of memorable midfield performances, I think of Souness, Gerrard, Molby, Keane and Viera. Not Curtis Jones. But again, it's opinions. If we are talking about superb players and memorable performances, I think about players regularly playing 90 minutes. Why? They play every game because they are almost indispensable.
Why not look at the figures, not opinions, of Gomez, Endo, Jones and Chiesa to show me how good they are? How many minutes did they all play last season? A title winning season. Chiesa started one game, was substituted and we lost.
Salah started every game, scored 29 goals and had 18 assists.
I need more than three goal involvements in six games to believe that someone is in form. Salah being out of form doesn't mean that Chiesa's 'form' is worthy of him starting. I can't remember the last time he played 90 minutes. At a guess, I'd say Plymouth or PSV and we both know what happened there.
I.