05 Jul 2026 13:01:06
The damage Slot and Hughes caused is starting to show during this transfer window. As far as I'm concerned Klopp won that league title and not Slot. Why oh why didn't we sack him before Christmas?
05 Jul 2026 13:40:20
Still banging on about Slot. Chances are, if we'd have sacked him before Xmas, we wouldn't have been able to have got Iraola.
05 Jul 2026 13:51:12
Chances are, if we sacked him before Christmas, we'd be a more popular destination for players than now.
05 Jul 2026 13:52:02
May have been able to get Alonso though, Rome. But I'm just glad that we are done with Slot and he is gone. I'm looking forward and feeling excited about the football again next season.
05 Jul 2026 14:05:45
I don't get how Hughes and Edwards weren't sacked with him. Keeping him beyond November was just neglect, everyone knew it was over.
05 Jul 2026 14:14:40
We clearly didn't want Alonso, Drac. I'm just looking forward to a new beginning, though I'm not expecting an instant fix. Very much a case of one step back, two steps forward.
05 Jul 2026 14:22:11
Players don't make decisions based on a few months of form. If we'd missed the Champions League, then yeah, maybe, but we didn't.
Keeping Slot beyond Christmas has had no impact on our ability to attract players.
05 Jul 2026 14:36:46
Dracred, Liverpool didn't even try for Alonso in the end. I'm sure meetings took place, but if the club wanted Alonso in charge, he wouldn't have taken the substantially worse option of Chelsea before we even hired Iraola.
05 Jul 2026 14:38:23
Any chance we could look forwards please? What's done is done.
05 Jul 2026 14:47:05
He went to Chelsea because Hughes and Edwards were still dilly dallying about whether to sack Slot. I believe that if we had made that decision sooner, we would have moved for Alonso instead. Just my guess, though, since it's all ifs, buts, and maybes at this point.
We'll never be able to tell what would have happened had we sacked Slot earlier. We can only guess. And it's all immaterial now since we have Iraola whom I am really excited about.
05 Jul 2026 15:13:50
It's all water under the bridge now, we move on and support Andoni to the hilt.
A poster was saying yesterday (he is, of course, allowed an opinion, like us all). He has fears that Andoni may be the next Thomas Franks. Nobody knows that, not even Andoni himself, how it eventually turns out.
You can only judge Andoni by his past managerial stats. The last time Bournemouth lost a PL game was January 03, 2026, to now PL champs Arsenal, 3-2. Since then 16 PL games unbeaten: 8W, 8D, 6 clean sheets.
Andoni's unbeaten record continues with LFC.
Maresca and Alonso are all under the same pressure as Andoni, as Jurgen said he hopes things click for him (Lady Luck). As Sir Bob often said, no matter how good a side you are, you always have to have the "rub of the green" (stroke of luck, going for you).
I personally think LFC have made an "Exceptional" choice, and with a little bit of Friar Tuck could do quite well, after all most of the squad had a full seasons holiday last year at Slots Holiday Camp!
05 Jul 2026 15:24:36
I agree, Dracred. Some of our own trusted ITK's reported that we had started discussions with Alonso and that talks broke down. I don't think it was any coincidence that Mike Gordon had to come in and sort the mess out right after Chelsea signed Alonso.
Edwards refused to budge on his total control, and Alonso wasn't going to let a suit dictate his own future after what happened at Real, evident by the fact that he was given considerable power over transfers at Chelsea.
I felt that once FSG saw Alonso go to Stamford Bridge, they were rightly pissed with all the dilly-dallying and sent Gordon in to sort it out.
Pure speculation, of course, but it perfectly fits the timeline and the rumours surrounding it.
05 Jul 2026 15:28:27
007 - People who think Iraola is anything like Thomas Frank are simply equating “manager from smaller team goes to bigger team” - a foolish take. I actually have a lot of respect for how Thomas Frank has progressed through football, but he was awful at Spurs. Iraola is nothing like him.
05 Jul 2026 15:35:20
I'm glad we didn't appoint Alonso and I much prefer Iraola.
05 Jul 2026 16:13:20
Alonso was still at Madrid at Christmas.