Liverpool FC - Talk /Gossip/Rumours 25/25

It's not in the slight bit controversial to say Alonso would choose Liverpool over Chelsea, I don't think money would come into it, no matter how much Chelsea were to throw at him, I don't think that's a factor for him, I think he's more interested in the overall project and building something like he did at BL, it's practically impossible to build anything at Chelsea, while you'd have to think he could do that at Liverpool.

The question is are Liverpool interested in him ( they should be), if they are and he did choose Chelsea, it would be a worrying sign that there is something wrong with the Liverpool project and we might struggle to get a decent manager in.

Personally I think the Chelsea links are to apply some pressure on Liverpool to act, to show that he has other options. He'll be linked with any top job ( bar Real) while he is still available, so no surprise to see him linked with Chelsea, he was even linked with United at one point.

Carra has just spoken about this on Monday Night Football. He said there's no question that Xabi would choose us over Chelsea given the opportunity (how entitled of him).

He thinks the fact that there are even talks happening with Chelsea pretty much confirms Liverpool are not interested. He has also said he'd find it hard to imagine Alonso ever managing us after going to Chelsea, which would be a shame. Or at least it would be a long way down the line.

I would imagine FSG have decided to wait until the end of the season before making any serious discussions. They probably haven’t formally approached anyone else, but perhaps have some back channels to agents etc.

There will have to be some scheduled end of season review, and once they sit down to discuss it maybe they will come to the same conclusion as the fans have gotten to.

This is a bit pedantic, it's a turn of phrase.

If I say "let Chelsea have a free run at him" instead, will that do?

My point is there's going to be a number of clubs going after Alonso this summer. Not just Chelsea, and it won't be Liverpool who decides where he goes.

At the end of the day. Liverpool ain't this huge hot ticket as things currently stand. The have yet to decided the future on the guys who'll be sorting out this situation behind the scenes.

How's Hughes or Edwards going to sell a long term concept to someone like Alonso when he's going be like where will you guys be in 12 months if things ain't going as planned?

Liverpool need massive surgery in that squad. I don't think they've adequately replaced Allison. I'd worry about their back 4. Right back is still not solved. All their senior center halves are out of contract either this summer or the next. There's talks that Tsimikas is coming back from loan to take Robertson spot as back up for next season (Christ almighty)

Midfield is an absolute mess and just seems to be filled with some No.8 and 10's.

And up front, there's a giant shaped Salah hole that needs to be filled and alongside him a giant shaped 125m record signing that needs to be adequately incorporated.

If I'm a manager in talks with Liverpool, I want to be guaranteed that I've funds for the next 2 seasons to turn this squad around and then I want to make sure the people making that promise are there with me.

Alonso also had a rough second season after winning the league.

I’m of the view now that the fans just cannot warm to Slot and just don’t trust him. I have said before that I think Slot thought coming in his results would speak for themselves and he would have to do any performative crowd work.

But the results and performances are very bad and he has nothing to fall back on. He cannot get the core group of players together long enough to build a rhythm because they keep getting injured.

Add to this the stress of the Salah thing, Jota’s death, the parade attack, the fans protesting the owners and now the Matt Beard situation - I don’t know of any manager/head coach who would be able to navigate all this. No wonder he is a bit snippy in the press conferences.

One of the guys on the anfield wrap mentioned his inexperience and it’s really showing now I think. Calls for someone like Iraola and even Alonso make no sense considering their relative inexperience too. Although Alonso did but up his team in Bayer and won the league.

Yeah I love Xabi but he's not the only manager out there by any means. People are talking as if we're losing out on the only option we'd have down the line

Anyone that does come in will be confident with this group of players. Would take very little to put it right, dedication and giving it all, sorts 80% of the problem, rest is luck, injury free run, and cutting out individual errors. Tweaks

Yeah there may be a few of those types at Liverpool but at Real it is the norm and not only accepted but that type of behaviour is backed by the board. That is an impossible situation for any manager, even a Klopp or Pep. Klopp probably would have just walked out on the Real job after witnessing that type of carry on.

Pep would have just thrown another billion at the problem like he does at every club he manages! 🤣

I saw a crazy stat on Reddit earlier comparing Slot to Ten Hag as seen below (i havent fact checked but it looks about right) assuming its true its a very damning stat for keeping Slot in position for next season.

The big feather in Slots cap is the premier league last season, which is amazing, but its a freakishly similar track record between them both in England and we know how that worked out for Ten Hag - we really need to learn from that lesson and not follow it.

I'm hoping FSG are keeping their powder dry in terms of announcements while the Champions League "push" is on but are working in the background on Alonso or whoever.

I dont think your reading it right, i'm not talking about the reference to the Dutch league. The data is on the first 80 matches in the Premier League for Ten Hag versus Slot for United and Liverpool respectively.

This data shows that despite Slot winning the league last season their records are basically the same which is a worrying trend for two reasons for me.

1) We were somewhat lucky last season with the perfect storm of Slot tweaks, team build on Klopp ideals of hard running etc., opposition (City/United/Chelsea and Arsenal) being off it.

2) It's not the first time i've seen Slot compared with Ten Hag in terms of passive nature of play. I didnt realise the underlying numbers would be so similar though.