22 May 2026 18:58:09
Where are people getting odds of 14/1 for Hoeness? The best is 6/1.
Why do people make stuff up in their mind and share it with us? This is a rumour site, not make-believe in my mind site.
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22 May 2026 19:31:56
I really don't know, I find it even stranger that somebody would actually cite bookies' odds as a source for the likeliness of us signing anyone to begin with.
22 May 2026 20:03:03
Ah, half the stuff on here is s*** that people make up in their minds and decide to share with us.
22 May 2026 20:16:48
Speak for yourself, Florian. ?
22 May 2026 20:32:15
Chewy, if any potential manager went 1/10 with the bookies or more, I would be saying he is gonna be our next manager off the back of it! Is this agreeable to you or does it still stand in the category of 'strange'?. ?
22 May 2026 20:58:01
Chewy FM banter is mainly why I visit this site these days... Great stuff, guys.
22 May 2026 21:07:46
Odds change based on betting patterns, and in this sort of situation, betting patterns change based on speculation and rumours, so the bookies usually have no more insight than we do. Go check the odds historically and compare it to the buzz in the media on the same day; you'll find that significant change usually correlates to big stories or speculation pieces in the press.
If somebody actually went 1/10, that would be an indicator of something major, like an actual announcement from somebody official, somebody widely trusted, resulting in a massive shift in betting patterns. In which case, I would have heard about it long before I ever checked the odds at the bookies.
22 May 2026 21:19:07
Thanks for educating an old on course bookie like me mate. ? I was working out the % of markets before computers were a thing.
You stated -
I find it even stranger that somebody would actually cite bookies' odds as a source for the likeliness of us signing anyone to begin with.
I'm just asking your cut off point where the odds become believable to you?
If there was an announcement from someone official about a manager/player joining the market would be deleted, because anyone with money would lump on the banker at 1/10.
22 May 2026 23:58:21
Sorry SZSZ8, when I say 'somebody official and trusted', I don't mean the club announcing the signing; I mean something like a 'confirmation' from a top-tier journalist with a credible source. Personally, I would never base my belief in anything on the bookies' odds. A price alone isn't enough of an indicator for me.
23 May 2026 00:10:59
Next ITK to pop up on here will be Paddy Power.
RobbosPress. ?
23 May 2026 00:37:21
RobbosPress ? Love it.
23 May 2026 08:53:48
Trust me SzSz8 you still don't know as much about the game as Chewy.I think God once asked him what he should do on the 7th day.
23 May 2026 10:42:27
You get Sunday off every week, Florian, and still I get no thanks.
23 May 2026 10:49:46
I'm sure you thank yourself enough, Chew. ?
22 May 2026 14:18:15
"None of us cared about football for weeks. Nobody wanted to train. That's the reality". Interesting comments from Robbo about after the Jota tragedy. Not getting into a Slot debate but if the team had missed pre-season how badly would that have effected their fitness during the season?
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22 May 2026 15:16:36
Like they couldn't catch up? Go back to bed.
22 May 2026 15:37:05
Googled it, John, and apparently it's ridiculously hard to catch back up. Among the reasons given are
No time for base training: pre-season allows sports scientists 4-6 weeks to build up a player's strength and stamina. During the season the focus turns to recovery, tactical preparation and playing matches.
Fixture congestion: with teams juggling the league, cups and European competition the training schedule is typically reduced to 1-2 days of light tactical work between games to avoid fatigue.
Extreme injury risks: to get fit during the season without a proper physical foundation requires intense training loads.
But pushing players this hard while also playing matches drastically increases the risk of severe muscle tears and soft tissue injuries.
Tactical sacrifices: if a team is trying to get fit during the season the manager often has to implement a less demanding tactical style.
It also says that without a pre-season players operate at up to 20% off their physical peak for months. This is not me coming up with this stuff, I don't know much about this kind of thing tbh. But it does show some of the things that would have been affected without a proper pre-season.
22 May 2026 16:13:17
Also says there's no time to gel as pre-season is the only uninterrupted period where managers can test tactics, formations and integrate new signings. Trying to build both physical and tactical chemistry under the pressure of weekly Premier League fixtures often leads to inconsistency.
As I said, im no expert on all this lark, but if, as Robbo said, training was effected for weeks last summer, could it not explain some of this season's failings? Not all, but some?
22 May 2026 15:42:56
Effected, or in 'put into effect'? Surely you mean 'affected'?
I understand you're German, but please - this is the King's English, what what!
22 May 2026 16:19:11
Good man King, thanks for that.
22 May 2026 16:39:28
Andy Robertson is literally telling everyone how much Jota's death affected the team and Neanderthal's still refuse to listen.
22 May 2026 16:57:11
Nobody wanted to train, but they still did, the copy and paste makes it sound like they were on the couch for the whole of pre-season, we won the first 5 and looked, as far as I could tell, pretty fluid in pre-season.
Of course it's a massive tragedy and will have had an impact that can't be quantified. This doesn't change the fact that Slot has made a stylistic choice for this season that just hasn't worked.
22 May 2026 17:11:46
Nobody's debating a stylistic change, No. 8, but a number of points covered are points that have been talked about a lot on here over the season, like the fitness of the players, the chemistry of the team, the amount of muscle and soft tissue injuries. It's certainly worthy of a grown up conversation without resorting to a Slot hate piece.
22 May 2026 17:15:01
As I said the other day, to watch the video and now say goodbyes instead of whining about who's in or out.
22 May 2026 17:17:23
They can still build their fitness up as the season goes. Just means it takes a little bit longer to get to peak fitness if you are training properly.
22 May 2026 17:28:07
But they didn't miss pre-season, Florian. Jotta's death pushed the return to training back by 5 days. Whilst the mental anguish of mourning can result in reduced physical performance, generally you are capable of physically recovering within a few weeks, especially elite pros. Obviously it can affect people differently, but missing 5 days of training would never account for being unfit 7-9 months later. That's a result of poor training.
If those who knew Jotta are unfit because of his death, what's the excuse for everyone else? If Jotta was the real reason for subpar conditioning, the new transfers should seem to excel by comparison; they didn't. Bar Kerkez, they've been just as poor fitness-wise as everybody else.
The fact that Dom and Kerkez are head and shoulders above the rest shows you that something is very clearly wrong with the training.
22 May 2026 17:44:05
Robbo, doesn't give the impression it was five days, Chewy, and let's face it, nobody on here knows how much it was disrupted. But this is the most from the horse's mouth statement that's appeared on this site all season, not some window cleaner or a bloke standing on the sideline of an u9's game. This is coming from a player and I'd take from what he says that the pre season was at least severely disrupted if not totally ruined.
Fields, the piece I read said it doesn't just take a little bit longer, it says it's ridiculously hard to get back on track during the season. Chewy, you're usually into all this training and fitness lark, humour me "If" the pre season was severely disrupted would it explain some of what we've seen this season? Specifically the points mentioned above.
22 May 2026 17:46:30
Nothing helps with a lack of pre season like constant holidays throughout the season rather than training up fitness, ey, FM?
22 May 2026 18:18:46
It actually mentioned that Gvardiol. Something about giving the players that had played all or the majority of the minutes in the previous game a few days off to avoid injury. I've no idea whether it's only these players that get the day off at our club, or whether it's the whole squad.
I doubt anybody on here knows for sure. This is all only on the assumption that the pre season was disrupted, of course.
22 May 2026 18:21:43
Robbo didn't give any impression whatsoever of how long they had off. He only said that "he didn't feel like playing football for weeks." He made absolutely no mention of how long training was delayed by. Let's keep in mind that Robbo very much wears his heart on his sleeve and was particularly close to Diogo. Also, do not forget that the press were absolutely all over the team during this period; it's confirmed that Jotta's death pushed the return to training back by 5 days.
Now, if you were to make an argument for the fact that some of the squad was grieving and that had a physical impact, you would have a valid point to discuss, which I did address above. But chasing this idea that the team took numerous weeks off based on how "Robbo felt" is nonsense. The club simply would not allow it. It's a business at the end of the day and the players are employees. An extraordinarily high-value business at that.
22 May 2026 18:23:44
The point is moot because the players haven't trained to the level other PL teams do at any point during the season.
This is an intentional choice from the coaching staff and nothing to do with Diogo's passing.
I don't understand why anyone wants to keep fishing on this.
22 May 2026 18:33:22
Ok, Chew, as usual there's no give with you. It's nonsense you say. So it must be nonsense. "He said we didn't care about football for weeks. We didn't want to train." I take that as longer than a few days, but sure we're all different.
I didn't expect any different on here really than the answer you have given. Surprised others are so quiet on the subject though. People are usually dying to talk about how unfit the players have been on here.
22 May 2026 19:08:00
If that's the case, the all the more baffling that Slot has reduced the training in favour of more time off & holidays...
22 May 2026 19:22:43
Read my reply to Gvardiol Nutter.
22 May 2026 19:25:13
??? Because there's no "give" with Facts, Florian, that's exactly why they call them "hard".
I'll repeat myself 1 last time, the press and the fans were all over the cub at the time, the players were physically seen, photographed and recorded returning to training 5 days later.
Why don't you go ahead and look it up yourself instead of wasting time trying to fabricate a situation that never happened? You'd save yourself a lot of time and energy, mate.
22 May 2026 19:29:13
You’re wasting your breath, Florian, they won’t accept that this season is anything but Slot’s fault.
I said all of this about preseason back in December and was shot down and accused of disrespecting Jota’s memory.
We’ve had a few interviews from players, ex players, fitness experts etc all season intimating that this season’s poor form is due to the aftermath of Jota’s passing and now Robbo has confirmed exactly what I thought had happened in preseason. They might have missed just 5 days but the sports science and coaching staff couldn’t just say right, guys, back to it, drop and give me 20! They had to allow players weeks and even months until they felt ready to train properly again. Give people time off if they needed it etc etc.
How anyone could possibly think that wouldn’t affect the season is beyond me. The entire season points to it. Running out of steam after 60-70 minutes, soft tissue injuries, lack of connection in the squad, new players not integrating. It all pretty much confirms it.
That being said I do think Slot should go. I think perhaps the whole thing was a bit too much for him to handle and perhaps he’s allowed them too much leeway for too long. He’s a young manager without the experience of a Klopp or a Guardiola and I think he’s really struggled to get the players back from it.
I think a fresh start with a manager who wasn’t with us when it happened will give everyone a fresh start and a new voice to get behind.
22 May 2026 19:50:17
Ah no, they were back in going full pelt, hell for leather on that fifth day. That's facts, ye know.
22 May 2026 20:11:43
ItsSlotallthatbad, suggesting that elite professional athletes would be allowed to half-ass training for months is wild. That simply would not be permitted. The first few days back would obviously be minimal, and the coaching staff would certainly be wary of how to pace the ramping accordingly, but intensity levels would return to normal very quickly, a hell of a lot quicker than a few months.
The gassing at 70 minutes is not a mystery. It's Peeters' periodisation programming. We know for a fact, Slot & Peeters employ reduced training load and intensity to increase availability; they've been doing it for 5 years now. It's not up for debate. They clearly underestimated the intensity of the Premier League in applying their methodology.
Tell me why none of the new transfers are 90-minute men either? They didn't even know Jotta yet, for some reason they're also struggling beyond 70 minutes, meaning there's another common denominator. The only one of the newbies that's fit is Kerkez, who, like his friend and countryman Dom, clearly has his own conditioning standards. It's no coincidence that these 2 are evidently fitter than the rest of the squad.
I have absolutely no problem admitting that Jotta's death had an effect on the team. Nobody would. But these notions that the squad didn't train for weeks and then only half-assed the training for months when they finally returned are literally complete and utter nonsense.
22 May 2026 20:15:11
Florian, half the first team have, by proxy of Salah, just criticised the manager's tactics. The football has bored the arse off everybody and we're miles off Arsenal and City.
Jota's death no doubt affected the players. But Slot is still a woeful manager. Your excuses for their lack of fitness don't account for how inept Slot is tactically and with his man-management.
22 May 2026 20:19:36
No one said months, Chewy. The season started 6 weeks after Jota's passing.
22 May 2026 20:43:55
The mental impact of Jota's death can't be measured, and would have taken a long time to process, and may have impacted the team's ability physically. Slot's training won't have helped, but you can't put this season down to just poor fitness; tactics and poor recruitment are equally in the mix.
Don't want to sound like Chewy and just berate Slot blindly, but he is one of three responsible for the season being so poor.
22 May 2026 20:48:58
I don't typically agree with Florian, but I think our frustration with Slot this season may have blinded us, or somehow made us downplay the impact of the timing of Jota's passing on our pre-season and everything else that followed.
22 May 2026 21:19:14
Florian, you clearly suggested they didn't return to training for weeks and ItsSlotallthatbad said they weren't training properly for months. I already told you to go look it up yourself. If you did, you'd see they returned to training after 5 days. End of. I also never said they returned to full intensity immediately, like you falsely insinuated I did. But, as I always said, you have to twist things to suit your argument. Anyway, immediate full intensity would never happen, for any team, ever.
I said that they would begin with minimal training and very cautiously ramp up, but that it would not take months as ItsSlotallthatbad suggested.
Noski, if you fully read my comments, you'll see I clearly brought up the fact that the death itself and emotional toll have an effect on physical performance, even suggested that Florian pivot to that as a point of discussion, but instead he's speculating on Robbo's "feelings" as opposed to discussing facts.
Salahsboot, when did I berate Slot blindly?
22 May 2026 21:28:47
It doesn't add up for me, lads. If anything, I think the fitness levels have gotten worse over the season. So that would suggest Diogo's passing and the impact that had on the players' motivation to train in pre-season is not a major factor.
We started with five straight wins. One of the few games where we were on it for 90 minutes (Real Madrid) was at the start of November.
I'm not out to get Arne Slot. You think I want to be here saying how I want Liverpool to replace any manager? Much less one that brought us no.
20? I don't. I want our manager to be successful so the club is successful. And that goes for nearly everyone here, I assume.
But I can only go on what I see. And what I see is a team's physical condition has steadily deteriorated whilst they were having constant days off that they weren't having before. Having a poor pre-season because of Diogo passing away doesn't cause that.
22 May 2026 21:39:21
It's absolutely a factor to deal with.
22 May 2026 22:01:52
SR, I think you’d agree that even though we won the first 5 games we looked gassed after 60 minutes and lost leads very easily late on. We were running on emotion in the late stages of games.
Like Florian said, without the base fitness which is done in the first 6 weeks of preseason, the players have no fitness base to build on or maintain, so as the season goes on they get more and more tired. That's why you are seeing a decline in fitness as the season goes on.
I remember preseason training and it was hard. We used to go running up and down the sandhills at Leasowe, bleep tests, long runs, sometimes running until some of us were physically sick. You can't do that type of training mid season as you have games to play and recovery etc.
If it doesn't get done in preseason it just doesn't get done. The muscle isn't built, the stamina isn't built, the strength isn't built and you can't catch up.
I'm not sticking up for Slot, he's massively to blame for this poor season too and it would seem (although I don't know because I wasn't there) that he didn't handle the situation particularly well. However it's a situation that not many managers will ever come across and not many could handle if they did.
I just wish some people would acknowledge that it's had an impact. Even when we have long standing players like Robbo, who has never shirked a day's work whilst he's been with us, telling us that it had a big impact, we have people saying it didn't and they should've got back to work after 5 days.
Like Robbo said, they are human beings and the first time they saw each other after the summer break was at their mate's funeral.
22 May 2026 21:43:43
Chewy do you not understand bereavement and that companies have a duty of care to their employees and customers to take care of their mental health when they are in a vulnerable state?
Yes they might have had to report back to work after 5 days but there would have to be a multitude of concessions to protect their mental state. Quite simply, if a player or member of staff says they are not up to training today you just have to let them take the day off or find an alternative that they do feel up to.
It's the world we live in mate. I'm not sure how old you are but you don't seem to have much life experience.
23 May 2026 00:36:12
ItsSlotallthatbad, like Florian, you're trying to twist my words. In your previous comment, you claim that I said "Jotta's death didn't have an impact and the team should've got back to work after 5 days." That's an outright lie, mate. Either you're on the beer or you're just not reading my comments properly.
Firstly, if you actually read my comments, you would see that on a number of occasions I have stated that Jotta's death definitely did have an effect on the players mentally and physically; I even suggested that Florian should pivot to that point as an argument because it's far more valid than the one he originally made.
In regard to returning to training, what I said was that the team was back to training 5 days later, not that "they should have been back" as you falsely claim. And that's not even up for discussion, by the way; it's a fact, go look it up. I also said that the training would have been minimal and very cautiously ramped up over time. Which it would have, I'm sure you agree.
Now, in regards to Florian's theory that players took multiple weeks off after Jota's passing, we know for a fact it's not true, not to mention that we had a friendly against Preston just 10 days after Jota's death in which basically the entire first squad played bar 1 or 2.
A week later, we played Stoke, and the week after that, AC Milan. Now I don't know about you, but I don't think any manager in their right mind is going to let a billion pounds' worth of talent play full matches, friendly or not, week after week, having just come back from holidays, with no training. To be quite honest, even suggesting the notion is ridiculous.
In previous posts, not in this thread, I have actually defended Slot and the club on this matter, saying that I have no doubt there was a very much open-door policy in regard to any issues the players might have pertaining to their mental anguish, so don't be so quick to try and paint some skewed picture with your humanitarian brush. I'm not young, and like everyone, I have experienced my fair share of death. I've experienced it from a young age and whilst playing sports, so I'm not insensitive to the particulars, nor am I talking through my hat. Don't be so quick to judge people when all you know of them is a handful of comments you weren't even bothered to read properly.
23 May 2026 01:05:08
I apologise, Chewy, if I am misunderstanding what you were saying but you’ve just said again ‘the team were back in training 5 days later’ which quite clearly they weren’t. Robbo said it himself. They might’ve been in the building but they were certainly not running a full preseason training program, if any at all, to begin with.
This is elite sport at the very highest level, where the margins are ridiculously small. If the rest of the league has a few weeks proper preseason training on you, and the training you are doing is not as intense as theirs, then you will suffer. No matter how much talent your squad has, a 5% drop can be the difference between winning and losing.
Between staying fit and getting injured.
We were in a position where the coaches and sports science guys simply couldn’t push the players as hard as they should, as they had to constantly be mindful of the mental state. That put us behind everyone else and we haven’t caught up.
As I said, I think Slot’s inexperience and probably his lack of charisma hasn’t helped. When the team needed a Klopp, father-like figure to put his arm around them and pull them together, they got a shiny-headed tactician who doesn’t have that passion or those abilities.
It could’ve, and probably should’ve, been dealt with better, but it was a very difficult situation that not many would be able to cope with.
23 May 2026 01:26:39
Robbo didn't say that at all, mate, not even close. He essentially said he didn't feel like playing football for weeks. He never said "I didn't play football for weeks." He literally played a match against Jotta passed; that was after he'd been on holiday for 6 weeks. Do you really think the club is going to let the lads play a match after being on the piss for 6 weeks with no training? Seriously.
"We didn't care about football for weeks.
None of us wanted to train... As footballers we then, of course, have a duty - we have to move on, we have to keep going and we managed that."
So he didn't want to train, that doesn't mean he didn't train. Training obviously began at a bare minimum, which is exactly what I said. There's no way any manager, coach or club is going to let you go out and play 3 matches in 3 weeks after 6 weeks on the piss with no training. End of.
23 May 2026 08:46:06
The bottom line is that the team are horrendously unfit. That's Slot's job to get right both physically and mentally. Saying that it isn't his fault is garbage. It is his fault. Every bit of it. If people cannot see that then they just don't know what they're talking about.
23 May 2026 09:02:24
Look, I'm not saying we definitely didn't have a pre season. I'm saying, 'if' what it sounds like to me (and people will read into it differently) from what Robbo said, that the usual level of work in pre season wasn't done, it would have affected the season massively in a number of ways that have ended up transpiring.
Coincidence? If Slot stays next season, I'm curious to see what we will be like with the same pre season as our rivals.
23 May 2026 09:05:00
That's the thing, Shanks. If from what Robbo says it sounds like could have happened, well, then it is not all Slot's fault. Nowhere near, actually.
23 May 2026 09:21:44
For God's sake, this is simple. There's 10 -11 months in a professional football player's season. If you can't get fit during that period, it's either your fault or the manager's fault. Everyone is unfit. Not one of them is at the level that they should be, nowhere near it.
That, obviously, is down to the training regimes put in place by the manager and the expected standards set by him. This is all down to Slot. No debate about it. Anyway, I'm off to mow the grass!!! Have a good weekend, FM and all others! At least the weather is getting better!!
23 May 2026 10:52:38
Dom and Kerkez are fully fit and have been all season, Shankly.
The new signings are also unfit under Slot & Peeters. They didn't even know Jota. So clearly there is another common denominator. One that's already been discussed at length.
This entire conversation was created from Florian's intentional cherry-picking, using only the first half of Robbo's quote to suit his argument, a quote in which Robbo clearly stated he didn't feel like training, but that he did in fact train.
23 May 2026 12:55:28
Look at my first post Chewy.I ASKED"if"the team had missed pre season how badly would that have affected their fitness during the season? i wasn't stating a fact or arguing i was asking a question.Unlike you i am not an expert on every subject known to man so i was asking people who might know more what they thought.i know that concept is totally alien to you but for us mere mortals its common enough.Not everything is an argument.