Liverpool FC - Talk /Gossip/Rumours 25/25

A what point does the immediate become the longer run for motivation?

If anything the team reversed that with 5 wins and going 5 points clear to losing the first game in the 97th minute and then crumbling for the rest of the season.

I'm sorry to hear for your parents. We're probably around the same age.

My mom has dementia and doesn't recognise me anymore. My dad died at the end of last year. I don't live in Ireland so I didn't get home to see him in time before he was sedated and died 2 days later.

A week after his funeral I lost my contract and was out of work for 6 weeks leading up to Christmas.

I didn't have time to grieve my dad. I had to focus on getting work again and providing for my family, paying bills and giving the kids a good Christmas.

Focusing on looking after my family is what my dad would have wanted me to do instead of using his death as a reason to not care for those that depend on me.

I got a contract at the start of the year and I had to throw myself 100% in to that. I could not say I'll only give 40% of my best because I'm still mourning my dad.

Unfortunately for high level football players the people who depend on them are the fans who for 90 odd minutes want to have an escape of their life's troubles and be distracted by the team they've supported for over 30 years. That's the cost they have to pay to put aside their grief and deliver and that's also the reward they get in terms of their compensation.

Match day 38 it wears thin for me to hear people in here still using Jota's death as an excuse for the players and managers.

I would argue that when you see your 28 year old friend die you're less likely to think I'm going to run through walls to win more football competitions and more likely to think there's more to life than football. It's a process and one they've had to go through while being under incredible media and supporter scrutiny. It's been a shite season but I think we need to just draw a line in the sand and hope a break will do everyone good along with some new signings.

Jaros did good in the 2 games he played for us last season and as you say has had a good history.

It was Sturm Graz in Austria that he won the league and Cup double in the 23/24 season.

He also won the FAI Cup with St. Pats and was voted their player of the season.

He done his ACL with Ajax in Feb so will be back with us for pre season.

I would be okay selling Mamardashvili if Alisson stays 1 more season and we have Jaros and Woodman as back ups.

Iraola heading for AC Milan if the rumours this evening are to be believed.

A Klopp song was sang twice yesterday in the Kop.

Fans and players aren't fully behind Slot. It's only a matter of time before he's sacked.

Completely disagree with that last line. What makes you think that? It was Klopp's squad and he made little tactical change to the team. I believe we would have won the league last season with Klopp in charge. A more relevant statement would be that we wouldn't have won the league last season if not for Salah hitting ridiculous numbers in goals and assists.

I get the feeling the Slot is already integral to the summer business we want to do. We all heard the reports from players like Wirtz about how impressed they were by him before joining. As fans we can absolutely criticise the performances and results and put it all on the manager, and these players will see it too. But we've definitely got signings lined up that have sat down and spoken to Slot about their role with us and there's probably a sense of certainty these players want before making a massive commitment to move their life to the north of England

I'm not saying this is right or wrong, and I'm not saying this is the only or defining factor. But knowing FSG there is absolutely business reasons for them to stick with him. I don't believe they are satisfied with top 4. I do believe they want to build a winning team and I do believe that the 3 year deals for Edwards, Hughes and Slot were deliberately that length to cover the full transition from Klopp's team to a new guard of younger players.

They don't make decisions based on fan pressure, emotions or sentimentality. If they are sticking with Slot, even if just on the face of it until seeing how the new season starts, it's not because of loyalty for winning the league and it's not because they are happy with the minimum achievement of CL qualification this year. They have clearly made their bed with the decision to move to a head coach rather than manager model which I reckon means we never truly considered Xabi.

I reckon the biggest goal here is to succession plan from Trent, Díaz, Núñez, Kelleher last season to Robbo, Salah, Konaté this season to van Dijk and Alisson next summer and if the recruitment team have identified the likes of Diomande, Wharton etc to be the next missing pieces to get in, and these players have already sat down and been convinced of the plan for them by Slot and Hughes, then that's at least part of the reason why they don't want to fire him right now

One of the English pods talked about the risks of getting rid of him. Basically, stepping up from Brighton or Bournemouth is too big a jump, look at Frank, Potter, Nuno etc.

That previously you had lots of big clubs around Europe you could pick from. Rafa came from Valencia, Klopp from Dortmund, big clubs with big pressures. Whether with the power of the PL that pool is a lot smaller. Basically 6-8 clubs.

So the risk of sticking with Slot is less than the risk of twisting

I think that's a reasonable assessment, it's just really important to recognize 3 positions are being padded out there by players likely not to be at the club. Would love to see Elliot stay though… but if he's not in Slot's plans it's pointless as he'll just be warming the bench all season.

Bowen would be a great signing. Aside from his skill, I think he just has the right attitude, leadership and experience that we're lacking. We used to be a team of leaders… I struggled to see any beyond VVD this season.

Agree with your last paragaph.

I think fans wouldn't just jump on Slot after a couple of losses. It's the fact that we went on a horrific run and won two league games from 27th September until 13th December, losing 6 out of 10. We had also only scraped the early wins which helped us to look better in the table than we were. We then had a sustained run of draws which were uninspired, followed by our most positive period in the league from late January to late February where we won 4 out of 5 games.

The over-riding factor through the whole season is that we've never really looked convincing even when winning well in the CL. The football has been drab and uninspiring. We seem to collapse easily when the opposition score a goal. Given the quality of players we have, we should be doing much better and fans know that. It's not a case of bashing Slot for the sake of it. It's been one of the worst seasons peformance-wise since Hodgson and Souness. Under most other managers like Rafa, Evans, Houllier, even when things weren't great we had good games and showed a plan and a style of play a lot of the time. This season has just been a nothing season. No interest in watching most games.

Even being really objective, anyone would have to say Slot is under serious scrutiny and should be on a borrowed time. I would think by Christmas, if things haven't seriously improved, he should be long gone. That's giving him a year and a half of poor performances which is more than enough benefit of doubt.

A great point. At one time, we had the Dutch captain, Scottish captain, sometimes-England captain in Hendo, Egypt captain and Senegal captain. Then you had natural leaders like Ali and Matip. Endo is Japan captain and Bradley is N.I. captain too.

The newer players are not natural leaders. Szoboszlai is the obvious one to join VVD and Ali in the leadership group, but after that…???