29 Oct 2025 05:45:47
From the Anfield Wrap, great perspective:
It's not just when they're on the pitch, it's every single second of their waking day they are dealing with the loss of their mate. "
"People are calling for Slot's head because 'last season he only won it with Klopp's side. ' Well, Klopp didn't win it with Klopp's side the season before. we know he changed things cause we talked all season about what he'd changed. he is managing a team of people through unprecedented loss.
Then goes on to make the point that some of them are just kids. How Slot is steering them all through this is a marvel. YNWA.
29 Oct 2025 06:35:42
It high time we departed from his narrative. There's something fundamentally wrong with the team and I very much doubt the tragedy has a thing to do with it anymore.
We are just not taking responsibility enough anymore! Whether the system is culpable is another thing but does system inundate ones feet from doing the basics of football? Passes are off, we lose almost every second balls in dangerous areas amongst many irk worthy show thesedays. This is on the boys as much as Slot. Damn! We are dire to watch at the moment and tying it up to the tragedy is strange to me.
29 Oct 2025 06:39:10
All the talk is about the manager, his tactics, formations etc, no doubt he has had a poor season but players also need to take responsibility. Win the 1st ball, if u can't win the 1st ball win the 2nd ball, u don't have to a great footballer to do that, u need desire and a determination to win it and our opponents have a greater desire and determination than we have.
That's your starting point in any team no Matter what level your at and whether u like manager r not is irrelevant u should be doing that out of your own personal pride and at a professional level level your duty to supporters who follow u around everywhere at great expense.
29 Oct 2025 07:09:09
With the grieving process seeming to affect the players ability to pass, press, win second balls or play with any intensity it’s a relief that luckily this grief hasn’t seemed to affect any of Kelleher, Trent, Quansah, Darwin or Diaz at their new clubs.
Last week after the big win in Germany this wasn’t mentioned once so hopefully the grieving process isn’t as bad on a Wednesday for them going into tonight’s game.
29 Oct 2025 07:20:35
With respect, Ian Salmon talks a lot of waffle on The Anfield Wrap. Some of their contributors, like Josh Williams and Ian Ryan, are excellent, but others will make any excuse they can to not criticize the team when they’re playing poorly.
I suspect that Jota has absolutely nothing to do with their poor form - there is all the time we have to reflect, remember and honour Jota.
The cynic in me thinks using Jota’s death for the performances of this season is quite disrespectful. If anything, it should have spurred the players on to do great things.
29 Oct 2025 07:36:01
I don't think anyone is using Jota's loss as a narrative for the team losing four games in a row.
That doesn't mean it still isn't having an impact on the players or that we should stop talking about it.
My lad showed me something on TikTok, the other day. It was Klopp talking about Jota, his loss and his influence in the dressing room.
It was very emotional and it made me think again about his mates and what they are going through.
It's not an excuse or the reason for us playing badly but we shouldn't stop talking about Diogo Jota, his loss and the effect they had on teammates that saw him nearly every day.
If you don't like it or understand it don't just dismiss it and expect everyone else to do the same.
29 Oct 2025 07:51:12
It's unfair to speculate either way Rigsby, is Szoboszlai playing out of his skin in memory to his friend or has he gone up a level through hard work and training? We shouldn't be dismissive of how the loss of a colleague and friend has effected the players nor should we place the bad form on it either.
29 Oct 2025 08:01:24
Blaming this on Jota is getting very boring now. Salah, for example, is on £400k a week. I’m sorry to say this, but you expect not only fantastic physical ability, but also a real mental steeliness for that sort of money. Same goes for all of them. We’re 9 games in to a season and need to show some mental fortitude.
As I’ve said before, when you cross the white line, you should be strong enough to focus on the game, especially this far in to the season now.
29 Oct 2025 08:26:37
So the more you get paid, the less vulnerable you are allowed to be? I'm sorry, I don't follow your line of logic. 'We paid you 400k a week, please restrict your grief to an appropriate amount that does not impinge upon our on field performance'
I think it's fair to expect Mo to be more of a leader given his senior status at the club, but I can't see how his wage is relevant when speaking about how much or how little he should allow Jota's death to affect him.
29 Oct 2025 08:46:32
St. Etienne, I listened or watched that episode (as I watch the Wrap every week for years now) and the over-emphasis on Jota's passing (not saying it is not a factor) was becoming ridiculous the more they talked about it. Even in the comments section, they were getting ripped for focusing too much on that.
Jota's passing has nothing to do with the wretched setup and situations the coaches are putting the players in to perform. Not being able to defend a long ball/ long throw, leaving a giant hole in the midfield for the CB's to get exposed and for oppos. to run into in transition, not having a press of any idea how to track back into a compact shape to protect the defence when we lose the ball etc. has nothing to do with Jota (and Andre's) tragic passing.
It has everything to do with Slot and his assistants trying to galaxy-brain stuff into being and despite the disastrous outcomes we have been seeing for several games, they keep sticking to all the things I mentioned above, gaslighting themselves into thinking, "Oh, this will work. Just give it time".
29 Oct 2025 08:47:48
What Kenny did after Hillsborough for the club and the families - now that was a "marvel".
I am sure has done his best to support the lads but let's not get carried away here.
29 Oct 2025 09:27:51
I understand grief but as tbb David, now you would be playing for his memory now and winning something in his honour imo.
29 Oct 2025 09:38:06
Some of you are just so black and white. There are a million ways what happened in the summer could’ve affected the squad. Both positively and negatively.
Some of you just have no empathy so it’s difficult to explain when you are unwilling or unable to put yourself in their shoes.
All you see is the players for 90 minutes 2 or 3 times a week you have no idea what’s going on or what has been going on in their everyday lives, in training, at home, whilst travelling etc etc.
It’s very likely that the tragedy affected training, especially the intensity of training. It’s a tough balancing act for Slot and the coaches to push hard enough to win games whilst being mindful of what the players have been through. Hell, Slot has had to go through it himself let’s not forget he might be hurting just as much as some of the players.
Early season would’ve been ‘let’s do it for Jota and Andre’ and adrenalin would’ve got us through games but that doesn’t last forever. Once the adrenalin wanes they still have to keep up that energy which is extremely tough.
It’s totally different for players who have left because they are not in it every day. That distance will help them.
It’s not an excuse it’s just a reminder that these people are human beings with human emotions and this is a very difficult situation that is difficult to predict and even more difficult to manage.
It will settle down but we need to understand and cut them some slack.
29 Oct 2025 10:04:02
Robbo, I have never thought of grief as some kind of motivation. That's just me. Now, I am cutting the players some slack and have been doing that since the news of his passing broke. I wrote on here how heartbroken I was seeing Salah cry his eyes out after the B'mouth game. I was distraught for him and the team mates and other fans all over the world who saw that. It was horrible to watch.
You say we should cut them some slack. You prolly want to also direct that to Slot and his coaching slack cos IMO, they are NOT doing the players any favours with the wretched systems/ setups he is deploying. Maybe he should simplify things a bit more for the players to make things easier for them you know, cut them some slack. Cheers, man.
29 Oct 2025 10:04:04
I'm sorry, but we have empathy, of course we do, but I think using Jota's death as an excuse for what's happening does not sit well with me. Unfortunately in life, you do have to get on with things again. If Salah is mentally struggling and not in the right mindset to play, should he still pick up £400k a week? Do we just throw £20m this season down the drain and chalk it up to him grieving? Of course we do not.
I'll tell you what I see. A team that is ill equipped for the physicality of the league at the moment. Salah in particular has still been incredibly greedy and not passing when he should, with his first thought being "can I be the star of the show? " His ego is getting in the way of himself in my opinion and he needs to think more of the team than himself.
Jota is not making us vacate the midfield in this ridiculous "horse shoe" tactic - Slot and the coaches are. Jota is making Konate look like a deer in headlights every time a ball is lauched towards him.
What happened to Jota is terrible and it will of course have had an effect mentally on everyone but we really do need to get back to business - and if that sounds harsh or lacking empathy, so be it.
29 Oct 2025 10:04:48
Elite sport is often decided by mentality. That 1-2% difference in mental well being can determine the outcome. It’s a well established fact.
This is the reason professional football clubs treat their players ‘like babies’ in many respects. They don’t want their players distracted by anything, they want them to be solely concentrating on training and playing.
They do EVERYTHING for the players. Everything distraction that goes with living a ‘normal life’, the club takes as much control as it can.
It’s not healthy in my opinion, but that’s the way they all do it.
Suffering grief for some people is unimaginably painful. After a while most people realise “life goes on” as the everyday distractions of life take your attention away from your grief slowly but surely.
These players don’t live the normal life we live as adults. We can only speculate how grief will affect them and it will be different for everyone depending on their cultural and personal beliefs.
To think it would have zero effect on their mental well being is just unrealistic.
To think it explains all that is wrong with the performances collectively and individually is also unrealistic.
29 Oct 2025 10:05:01
TBB
How in the world do you believe that earning £400k per week should diminish Salahs grieving. Did you not see how emotional he was. Also it is not just losing a well loved team mate but also the tragic circumstances. I cant' imagine what Jota and his brother went through. Maybe try and put yourself in Salah and his team mates shoes.
29 Oct 2025 10:05:52
There is some of the worst drivel I have ever read on here in this thread.
Grief affects different people in different ways and will be 100% still effecting some of the players in the squad and the way that some people on here are claiming that they should be over it by now or not effected because they earn a lot of money is embarrassing and insulting. I lost my brother in similar circumstances many years ago and I am still hit by waves of grief. Over time it eases and stops being a constant weight on you but you are still hit by unpredictable waves. It will also be a lot harder for those still at the club because they are surrounded by constant reminders; his locker in the dressing room; his song reverberating around the stadium; his absence in all the places that you would expect to see him. This is a good thing. It will help the players in the long term and Diogo rightly deserves to be honoured and remembered.
To blame everything on grief though is not realistic and used a little too easily by some as the sole cause of the problems. It isn't. It is one of the things that will be effecting the team but there are other factors at play that need to be addressed.
29 Oct 2025 10:24:38
OliRedSpoton has spoken so the discussion is over. Yeah, it's ALL on Slot. Oh, and his assistants.
I thought it was relevant to talk about the death of a Liverpool player, less than six months ago. If it has 'nothing to do with' poor results and performances, then that's one way of looking at it. But is it appropriate to describe poor results and performances as 'disastrous outcomes' when talking about the loss of a player?
Robbos, I agree; there is very little in-between on this forum.
29 Oct 2025 10:45:19
Honestly every day I come on here and we have the same talking points repeated ad nauseam about how Slot is doing the same thing over and over again, about how he said he doesn't know how to deal with long balls (which isn't even what he said, I wonder how many people actually watched that press conference and are simply exposed to the British media magnifying the words of a frank Dutch manager about the team's difficulties to mean 'this fella is complaining about OUR style of football like he's above it' and then revelling in some poetic justice about hardnosed 'english football' making a comeback against fancypants managers with big budgets), and every time the same points are repeated numerous times a day, the hysteria grows and we grow even more tired with the manager and his inactivity, even though we have no idea what's going on behind closed doors.
HOW can he not have an answer? HOW is it that we can see what the problems are and he can't? HOW can these players play badly when they are paid this much money? HOW can he leave a donut shaped hole in the midfield? HOW do we have a setpiece coach but we don't score or defend them? HOW is it that we don't have any answers to this yet when we are left to our own devices asking the same questions hundreds of times a day among one another?
I get that losing hurts, and losing without seeing light in the tunnel, at least in the short term, also hurts. We are a top team, legitimately, people are talking like this is the beginning of a precipitous slide into midtable or worse with every huge physical side in the land bullying us into absolute submission and Wirtz crying himself to sleep every night for daring to come to England.
Maybe it's true that the transfer team got things a bit wrong with their predictions for how teams would play us and how the league would go. Maybe Guehi and Leoni were the secret keys to our team this year, even more so than Wirtz and Isak. I do find it very difficult to believe that Kerkez was bought to play this way, we are missing something in the team that would free him to attack, though it's also mystifying as to why Gakpo doesn't give him the ball when he's overlapping or underlapping. Slot's lack of trust for certain players we have on the bench and his decisions to play Macca and Isak while ignoring the players we have in form are both absolutely indefensible, this is true.
At the same time I do think that our exposure to endless Youtube talk radio content and the depths of the football troll cesspit has had a say in the sort of speculation that we have on here, people whose livelihoods are premised on stirring up a fuss repeating that we don't have a clue, we're a massive disappointment, Slot isn't fit for English football, I mean, these are the same people who said we were going to win the league by a country mile this year, now they're saying Arsenal were ahead of the tactical curve this whole time and were always going to win it, it's absolute nonsense really.
If anything this dip reminds us that it's possible that this team and the people in charge might make mistakes sometimes. If everything was plain sailing, we bought a whole bunch of world class players who smashed everyone in sight, yeah we would all enjoy that, but it's no less interesting or uncharacteristic of our club for everyone involved to overcome hardship, to face harsh tests in their career, they've reached the highest peak in football joining Liverpool, up here it's not all going to be a cruise to the highest honours, you have to go through adversity with your team mates to get there.
For all of us to constantly repeat that failure is not acceptable is hardly realistic, nor is it very healthy for ourselves or the team. People saying the job was always too big for Arne, he can't manage in the prem with his own tactics and his own team, his plan was never going to work in the prem, I think it bears reminding that the same was said of Guardiola and Arteta (not that I genuinely rate him as a manager) in the beginning.
Unlike those two, Slot won a title in his FIRST SEASON. My own opinion is- let's not allow panic to turn us against the manager when we don't know the full extent of what his plan is for this team going forward. We might be missing a piece or two in our team, maybe because the plan was flawed at the beginning and might have to change a bit, but even if that were true, there's no point bemoaning the fact.
All we can do is look forward, think about what the next steps might be as Slot figures out how to tighten the team up and have us on a solid foundation until January. He did an outstanding job of that last year, so at least we know that he is perfectly capable of getting us to defend and win duels as a unit. Would you not rather that than bring in an unknown quantity who has no experience in the prem or managing a club as massive as ours?
29 Oct 2025 10:59:43
Klopp got 82 points with the same squad to be fair he’d have won it last season.
29 Oct 2025 11:05:17
Gaga - Salah is earning that amount of money because he is an elite sportsman - mentally and physically. If he is unable to play because of his mental state, why doesn't he flag this to the coaching staff and make himself unavailable for selection? Chiesa is giving his absolute all for the team when introduced, for example.
I can only imagine if I was being paid £400k a week and just simply didn't / couldn't do my job properly. Most of us have been through some sort of bereavement, some very sudden and shocking, but we have all had to get back to work.
I will repeat again that the problems I see are 90% down to our tactics, new personnel and an inability to deal with physical teams.
29 Oct 2025 11:12:40
Everyone is going to have an opinion on this but if salah is suffering maybe it’s time to leave him out of the team? He clearly is the one who seems to be struggling the most .
29 Oct 2025 11:36:58
When Liverpool was under Shanks and then Bob we had superstar players who won trophy after trophy but one thing kept them on their toes and that was Ronny Moran . If you listen to players from that era they say he would walk in to changing rooms and call them big heads or they would win the league and get their medals at start of next season he would walk in with a cardboard box plonk them on the table and say if you think you deserved one take one .
We don't have that any more discipline, respect .
This is missing right across society and it shows .
YNWA.
29 Oct 2025 11:49:25
TBB
I understand your point. But grief affects people differently, and I agree if Mo is struggling then yes don't pick him till he is ready. There are I am sure techniques elite players use to assist with their mental state but these will be personal to them. I just don't subscribe to the view that because they are well paid they should be able to block out any situation. This was not just losing a friend and colleague, it was also the tragic circumstances.
I am guessing you never met Diogo but I am sure you like me would have been shocked when you heard the news. Imagine he was a close colleague of yours. I am not suggesting that the loss of Diogo is by any means the cause of our current blip, I just feel some people are quick to criticise so called well paid footballers in these circumstances.
29 Oct 2025 12:30:15
Has Shappy taken over some user names on here?
Pat last time my thumb worked that hard scrolling I was on Pornhub.
29 Oct 2025 13:22:23
I guess we can never really know how they are coping with it daily and what impact it is having on performance. No doubt it is having some level of impact.
I also wonder if the song being sung at 20 mins is helping or hindering at the moment.
29 Oct 2025 13:39:52
"To think it would have zero effect on their mental well being is just unrealistic.
To think it explains all that is wrong with the performances collectively and individually is also unrealistic. "
My sentiments exactly.
29 Oct 2025 14:02:27
Gaga - I totally agree with you and grieve indeed affects all of us differently and absolutely, something like that will have an affect, for some for the rest of their lives to some degree. And for the most part, I also hate in when people cite the money these players are earning, as if that makes them robots and you often hear that levelled at them when if comes to playing even more games. "They're paid fortunes so shouldn't complain" - it drives me mad.
However at some point, we are going to have to draw a line under it and in any other profession, you wouldn't be allowed to take £400k a week for weeks on end without performing to the levels expected - no matter the reason. I just don't like it when Jota is used as an excuse for anything, that's all.
29 Oct 2025 15:44:36
You know what TBB basically we are actually agreeing with each other.
Lets just hope Slot can turn our form around.