Liverpool FC Premier League Champions 25/26 - Talk /Gossip/Rumours

We have two months of playing the bottom teams now, lets see if we can put some wins together

Hodgson wasn't in charge for the FA cup, Dalglish took over from Hodgson, his first game back was the FA cup tie against United at Old Trafford, Gerrard got sent off after a few minutes, despite all that, the performance was decent and lost 1-0. The club was in disarray at the time, it's not today, very stable, supposedly one of the best run clubs, yet we have an unbalanced squad despite a huge spending spree last summer. It may not be as bad as the Hodgson era, but, on the field its probably worse than at any time since.

Across our 25 league games this season there have been 10 instances where we score a goal and then concede one within the following 15 minutes.

Some rambling thoughts

Thought we should have brought Jones on yesterday. After the goal and before they scored, we were defending deeper and losing momentum, could have done with taking a break with a substitute, drag it out for a minute or 2 and reset. Bringing him on at 1-1 was too late imo. Need to get better at the dark arts and slow down play, etc.

Wirtz needs to learn when to shoot hard, he's not going to get the time to place every shot in this league. It's very annoying that he can get into the right places, but his shooting lets him down at times. These passes into the net may work against Newcastle but not against the better teams.

I think the age of working with the smaller squad is over. I think Arsenal are top of the league in part due to the depth of their squad and can carry injuries more than City and Liverpool. Think we're at least 2 players shy in the squad this season. Obviously the center half we didn't get on deadline day and not replacing Diaz too. Costs us plenty of points this season.

Also we struggle to get the ball up to pitch as we have no out ball. We really miss a Mane in this regard. Some one who the ball sticks too and get us up the pitch. Firmino used to have trickery and diaz was able to dribble up the pitch. The ball bounces off our front 3 too often, think Ekitike needs to learn the trade, Salah is unfortunately passed his prime and all parts of his game are struggling including this, but Gakpo is really frustrating, just seems to be weakest players with his physique.

Very hard to see how we finish in the top 5. We have no momentum, always a new defeat around the corner. Whether he stays or goes depends on where we finish. Not sure if they keep him if we finish 6th but 7th or lower and he's definitely gone.

Spurs on 15th March

One thing I never mentioned above was that I think Kerkez is really starting to come into his own. Thought he was our best defender in the terrible first half.

We have a better squad then results suggest and that's why I think Slot needs to be changed. I don't think he's getting the best out of the players we have.

Yeah there are gaps in the squad for sure but the players we do have are serious quality and that's not being utilised well at all this season.

We certainly have far better squads than Brentford, Sunderland, and Everton….who are all within 3 points of us.

I'm also not sure how much depth can be blamed when Slot doesn't use half the squad anyway.

We've only used half our subs in our last 2 games (2 vs City, 3 vs Newcastle) and all 5 of them came on at 84mins or later.

Now I don't think any of the guys on the bench are world beaters, but it's the manager's job to get a tune out of every player, not just his favourite 11. A club like Liverpool want to be playing twice a week and competing for every trophy available. You can't do that while writing off half the squad.

Just need someone who'll actually link up with him in front of him now.

Another one that baffles me is the usage of Jones, I was saying earlier in the season that he's one of our better midfielders at the moment (having a better season than Mac and Grav imo).

Since his start against Burnley on January 17th Liverpool have played 5 games, across those 450 minutes' worth games Jones has only gotten 53 minutes (11 minutes in our last 3 games).

He's at worst our 4th best midfielder and we start 3 midfielders every single game, it makes no sense to me that he's not getting any minutes.

Probably no Salah mid week, few places reporting his grandfather has passed away.