General Premier League Thread 2025/2026 - See Post #1 for Mod Note

It was a strange decision. The ruling is black and white. If the ball touches the hand of the player in the process of scoring a goal it has to be ruled out. It doesn’t matter how sleight the touch is.

Slot was angry about it post match and rightly so. These VAR guys have this technology at their disposal and are getting paid to sit there and review these decisions and they basically chickened out of making the call because it would have been an unpopular decision perhaps?

No skin in this game for me but a very similar incident happened in the Scottish league yesterday involving a team I support.

Wonder will there be any repercussions for the VAR team after that? They should be asked to explain why they didn’t apply the rules.

I'll be honest here and say I don't know what formula Slot is going for and I don't think he does either.

I know he's not the only one making calls on transfers at Liverpool but nearly 12 months on nobody can confidently say what the plan was from last summer.

2 strikers signed for big money and then the fee spent on Wirtz surely meant a formation change to 2 strikers with a 10 behind. Also the full backs they brought in are the kind that like to push high.

But there's no real rotation options with the strikers and they still must have been planning to have Salah in the team. So was the plan to push Salah up top and rotate with the 2 new strikers?

Is there enough midfielders in the squad to have a 3 behind a 10? They would have a lot of work to do to cover high full backs to give them width. Who rotates with them?

I don't think we've ever seen a team win a PL and then deviate as much the following season. A lot of questions to be answered there from above the manager as well as the manager.

They'll need a nice bit of investment again this summer to fix the gaps

That was such an improved performance from spurs last night showing plenty of fight despite the huge amount of injuries going against us.
De Zerbi has made a massive difference in just four games and within a month.

We have a fighting chance of staying up now.

Spurs completely outclassed Villa on the pitch and we played to our potential finally.
It’s amazing what a different combination on a new manager with the same players can achieve.

It has nothing to do with Villa “throwing a match” and I think for you to insinuate that is pretty dodgy to be honest.
I mean isn’t that illegal?

Villa didnt play well, obviously had an eye on Forest game, but to say they threw it, is wrong

I don’t think going all in on Wirtz would be the right strategy, and I don’t think anyone is calling for a team to be built around him. Wirtz will be at his best in team that is functioning well. He’s different than say Bruno, or a KDB type player, players thay still show their quality when the team around them might not be at their best. For the record, I think the Wirtz transfer has been a spectacular failure so far and it’s probably not fair on Slot if he loses his job over it.

It seems a bit revisionist to be saying there was no plan in the summer from a Liverpool point of view - fanbase was overwhelmingly happy with our summer and rightly so - we were seen to be going big from a position of strength. The only disappointment was not getting Guehi over the line but it was a bizarre set of circumstances that led to that.

Bringing in Isak, Ekitike to the forward line with Wirtz was a huge statement. Injuries have scuppered those 3 getting any rhythm together, along with the loss of Jota and Salah going completely downhill and Gakpo slowing down attacks its been a tough season up front.

The midfield was refreshed pretty recently so no surprise that not much was done there. A no. 6 would have been nice but with Grav performing there so well last year it’s no surprise that nothing was really done here. But injuries at RB have meant Szoboslai, our clear best player this season, hasn’t been playing where he’s best - and MacAllister has fallen off a cliff energy wise which nobody really saw coming(although he’s been playing without a proper break for years now so maybe it’s understandable). It’s been a big disappointment and a lot of our lethargic play stems from there.

And in defence, we thought we’d get another top class CB but fell through, not really the clubs fault. The highly rated one we did get was injured very early on which is terribly unlucky. Also losing Trent was massive, especially in attack.

So it’s been a roundly unlucky season for us. Slot might not survive as the football is painfully slow at times but the idea that the club were in any way negligent in the summer is wide of the mark imo.

loads of changes?

They do indeed. And fair play to them. Same as Villa, they have every right to

Sometimes I think the Wirtz slating is very over-exaggerated. I'm not sure if it's the transfer fee, or because of the club that bought him. Maybe it's both.

Has he been brilliant? No. Has he been great? In patches, yes. Has he been terrible? No. For a young player, 22, and in his first season in the PL and a new county I think a bit of lee-way is required. Large lee-way is required because of the way Slot is setting up the team and not using Wirtz to the best of his abilities and being that link man in attack, chance creation close to goal etc. The constant stream of injuries in attack and getting those relationships set don't help things but that's football. I'm very sure the eventual plan was to have Wirtz play behind a partnership of Isak & Ekitike but they never started a single league game together for one reason or another. We have seen Wirtz play, IMO, too deep at times this season too, for what his talents possess. He was picking up the ball in defensive midfield positions in order to try create some passages of play rather than being fed the ball in the final third to give that final ball to the strikers.

And in simple terms of numbers, a combined 17 goals & assists in his debut league season is not something to be sniffed at. Especially as an midfielder. Attacking midfield of course. All of them from open play too. I'm sure if he took every corner kick, free kick and penalty then those numbers would be higher too. I know numbers are not everything, but I just done a quick comparison between some players who play in somewhat similar positions, or even in some more attacking positions. All numbers taken are from transfermarkt and use open play data only, using transfermarkt's set piece definition.

I suppose Forrest are throwing the game aswell are they?

Forest reserves might be too good for Chelsea

like your own in 2012?