Liverpool FC - Talk /Gossip/Rumours 25/25

I couldn't agree more, people seem to forget we were comfortably top at Christmas that year, having just beaten Palace 7 nil, City were actually just hanging on in the title race, think they actually got a match conveniently postponed due to Covid, when they weren't playing well. Matip then got injured ( VVD and Gomez were already out at this stage) and that effectively killed our season - I think Klopp made the grave error of pulling both Henderson and Fabinho from midfield to CB instead of going with Philips and Williams, this led to the terrible run at the start of 2021, but, it was an understandable error at the time.

This season is different, the football we are playing and performances have been dreadful, while we have had some injuries, we haven't had a full blown crisis, it's more the fact that our squad is light, we have very little depth in defence or midfield despite the huge outlay over the summer. Also what some don't seem to realise is that there will need to be some more serious investment in this squad for us to challenge for the title next season- the gap between us and Arsenal & City at the moment is huge. Arsenal could give us a right spanking next week if we don't play with a bit more intensity and purpose.

And still despite how poor we are, we are somehow in 4th, hard to believe, but, when you look at the teams around us that might overtake us ( Chelsea & United), both are very inconsistent, playing poorly, one without a manager and the other with a manager ( Amorim) still under huge pressure, so while I think we are poor with no real sign of us improving, I still think we'll finish 4th, but, that's more a reflection of the poor standard of the league than us being a good team.

I think we do have a bit of a crisis. Too many players cannot last 90 minutes. It’s probably why the players don’t press as much.

Has Wirtz played 90mins yet?

Edit: I'll answer my own question. Sunderland is the only league game out of 17 that he played the whole game

He also played the full games away to Frankfurt and Galatasaray

I thought Frimpong was good against Wolves, one of our best players. He played 90. He then played 84mins yesterday and was taken off for Ngumoha which I read into as being tactical to try and win the game rather than him not being able to carry on

I say with Slot there is no consequence for mediocre displays, it's all calm nice words and on to the next one. Top managers lose their rag over mediocre displays, Pep, Klopp, Ferguson , Jose, even Wenger was known for his dressing room anger. They are the obsessed with winning people sending their teams into battle, you must fear the consequences of failure, right now no ones arsed at Liverpool, there is no fear, no desire, no passion.

Were people expecting us to play like Klopp forever? Like there are no other styles of football possible? We don’t have the players to play heavy metal football.

Pep is a lunatic in the dressing room, goes mental with passion to the point he rips his own face apart. Arteta is the same, learned it from Pep. Klopp had a lot of passion, never wanted it on tape, players have talked of it though, how it inspired them. No clue what Slot it like, but the whole story around the man coming in was that he was The Calm One

it’s hard to pick anyone below us who are really performing consistently well enough to get top four. Chelsea you would expect should get better with a new manager bounce perhaps, but villa may also drop off. I think we prob will make champions league places but it is a sorry enough state of affairs to be in at the moment alright.

I don’t think the club will get rid of slot unless we have another major drop off in results. Personally as a fan I’m rooting for him and the team to improve significantly, but it is tough watching at the moment.

Nah, 22/23 didn't happen…there is no way Klopp would have overseen rubbish like this year without a bunch of reasons for it happening. I mean have you seen the previous posts on here? Klopp was brilliant all the time, we were pressing monsters who were attacking in every match and we never had bad or boring displays. That is how people remember the past and that is how it is.

I had to take a break from here when we were losing as it is not healthy to be mired in negativity. The reaction to a draw in a new year game when very few teams play well is a little sad for me. I did think Liverpool supporters are better than others, but we are the same as any other big team, entitled to think we deserve to win every match by turning up and discounting what the other teams do against us.

Is it disappointing we have not kicked on this year? Yes it is, but we have had to evolve our attack as we lost 3 of the options from last year and we know Salah has not played anywhere near a decent level so far this season. Have we made mistakes in the transfer market? Yes we have, but we have also been unlucky with injuries in defense so we have not been as good as we should be.

Finally, surely people were asking us to be more solid and have more control than those matches where we were all over the place and we lost 6 out of seven in the league, but how did they think that would happen? Did they think we would just turn on a magic switch, be more defensively solid and attack like it was 17/18 again? Are people serious? Some criticism has been valid of Slot and the team, some of it not realistic and it shows some naivety on the part of the posters and devoid of reality of sport. We become more defensively solid but it will mean our attack is blunted a little, then we work on getting that up to shape. We cannot outscore the opposition every match, we tried that already this season.

The idea we could go really far in the CL despite our general form is fairly fanciful.

Alot of people point to outlier situations (2005) as proof it can happen without recognizing how unlikely the probability is compared to a situation where the team is functioning properly.

I see an awful lot of comments about the amount Liverpool spent last summer and that they should be still be challenging for the title but just looking at the money spent ignores the fact that the squad also lost a lot of experienced players and all the new players needed time to gel. Maybe it was to much at once, maybe we should have held onto some of the guys we sold so we'd have a better stocked squad.

Yes this season has been a huge disappointment and we should be doing better but I think the gamble on the signings were worth it given their ages and profiles as they should form the base of the next "team".

Updating this after 27 games based on the recent talk of our 22/23 season

This season after 27 games in all comps we have a goal difference of +5 (43 scored, 38 conceded)

After 27 games in 22/23 we had a goal difference of +19 (55 scored, 36 conceded)