We had 6 wins, 2 draws, and 3 losses after winning in 2020. Was that coasting the reason we played poorly in 2021?
speak for yourself. he was being touted as a darkhorse for us and I was a big fan of his over Amorim.
I also recall my non-desire for a guy wedded to 5 at the back, and hoping for the Dutchie instead..... Man - Amorim was a bad bullet avoided....
Don't think we actively tried to coast in 2021. However, this didn't sit well with me in 2025: Arne Slot explains why he allowed Liverpool players to holiday in Dubai
We had no CBs in 2021 (VVD, Matip, and Gomez all had long term or season enders). Now - that was also a mistake to not have purchased a CB - but I don't think we were coasting.
]I think we lost van Dijk in October 2020, and with Matip and Gomez taking turns at the treatment table. Klopp stubbornly played Henderson and Fabinho at centre-half initially, weakening both midfield and central defence. It was only when injuries forced him to play Williams and Phillips, admittedly lesser footballers but better defenders, that results improved, with our actually ending up clinching 3rd spot, which had looked unlikely as we careered from one poor result into another. And there is an echo in Slot's thinking that Jones and Szoboslai are better right-backs than the next cabs off the rank behind them.
I find Paul Tomkins to be too much of a navel gazing writer - look at me, here’s what I said in 2003, I was smart then, I’m smart now - but this a very good piece. What it does is blow away a lot of the smoke and bullshit and look directly at the fire surrounding Slot’s performance this season. I may not agree with all his conclusions, but I think he’s largely on the mark. I’ve been saying for a while that CL qualification and a CL semi this season sees him staying. I’m more convinced now that he might only need CL qualification for next season. Anyway, good article by someone I usually find difficult to read.
Tomkins has always been a master spinmeister, on pure volume of text alone he beats you into submission. But yeah many of his points here are valid, one certainly hopes we qualify for the CL and Slot gets more time to get it right. Even from the most negative of perceptions of Slot, how sure we that Alonso or Nagelsmann would be significantly better?
Ding! Ding! Ding! Therein is the answer to firing Slot. Do we know, are we certain that his replacement will be a success? That he’ll get a tune out of this squad? Come May, Slot will have had 2 seasons under his belt with 1 major trophy. Plus a serious and overdue rebuild that has been hampered by injuries. Let’s assume he stays. If we are then in the same position then as we are now, I could see him exiting at the end of the season. Right now, I’m more and more convinced that he has next season to show us what Slot-ball really is. One huge tell for me in retrospect has been Frimpong and Kerkez. You don’t buy not one, but two, wingbacks, almost wingers to replace 2 orthodox full backs unless you have a serious overhaul in mind.
I’m not buying this. Nobody is providing compelling evidence other than “be careful what you wish for “ scenarios. So what do we wish for? On current evidence, I don’t think Slot has what it takes to make Liverpool challenge on 4 fronts. He seems to operates a pretty much closed shop squad that he’ll run into the ground. Getting more players, I hear a common refrain! Balls. We’ve just dropped points, once again, to a team woefully out of form and ravaged by key absences, and could quite easily have lost (actually reflecting just how his poor Spurs is.) And, finally, the natives, not on the internet, those who pay good money and take their time to go support their club, booed again at Anfield this season. They’re not fools and recognise turdville when they see it. The club will be negligible it hasn’t already sounded out alternatives.
It appears to me that our seasons are mixed up. We’re having the season now that we all thought we’d be having last season with Slot’s first year and last season was the season we should be having this year. If you follow me.
Yeah, but I think the central question is which season do we think more accurately reflects Slot's ability to manage the team going forward? My sneaking suspicion is that we had a pretty balanced team and tactics that matched the strengths/masked the weaknesses of the squad last year. A lot of that probably was carry-over from the hard work Klopp and co. had done the previous years. We clearly had some re-tooling to do and last summer was the start of that. I can totally see how we might jumble up the squad balance, maybe letting some players go that we probably shouldn't have (Diaz) could affect balance of play in the opening stages of the season. But I just can't figure out how to justify the absolute lack of change of tactics and strategy between how we started playing this season and what we are doing now 3-4 months later. What were obvious, glaring problems three months ago are still obvious, glaring problems (lack of midfield cover during defensive transition, and slow ponderous and predictable ball movement in attack). We keep hearing from Slot about how there is no time to adjust given all the games - but we did see adjustments when Klopp's coaching team were faced with adversity (pushing Konate out wide with TAA moving into an inverted position in 2022-23, and changes in the running and passing schemes around the half-spaces in attacking play as well as switching from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1 and integrating academy players into his defense in 2020-21). I understand why people are legitimately asking "who is guaranteed to do better?" That is a valid question, but also kind of kind of disingenuous. No one is a sure-fire win - even Klopp was never a sure-fire choice. He just looks that way after the fact. I think the important question is not "will the next person be better?" But rather, do we think Slot and his coaching team have the ability to turn this current form around? I've long lost confidence in that prospect. For all the "stabilizing the ship" that is being bandied around, this year's team iteration has never looked that good, and our unbeaten run still contained way too many draws... For me, I just find Liverpool to be increasingly frustrating to watch this season as they repeat the same mistakes time after time after time. Is Slot going to see out the season? At this point, of course he is. Things aren't to the point where you know for sure whether this malaise isn't something he can correct with a couple of good signings or not. I've said before, and I still believe it, that as long as we are in and around the CL places for next season he'll be retained by FSG. My guess is that if we make the CL we'll try to bring some new players into the team and see how things go next season with Slot (I'd be surprised if he doesn't swap out some members of his current coaching team, though). If he doesn't manage to get Liverpool into the CL spots, my guess is he's probably pretty much a dead-man walking; same as Rodgers was prior to Klopp coming in. Given that it is a WC year, any new coach is going to have limited ability to work with and instill new patterns of play this summer. Probably means some prospective managerial candidates may be willing to wait before joining new clubs (perhaps even joining mid-season if needed).
If we qualify for CL, he is staying. We required Ali scoring a crazy goal against a relegated West Brom to get us into the CL places in 2020/21. Yeah, yeah, we had a couple of CB injuries. We've had injuries all over the place this year and Edwards & Co left Slot with a horribly unbalanced squad after they were playing championship manager this summer - must have been a long party all summer to celebrate the PL title that caused their brain rot. We have no right backs in the squad that Slot will actually use. We have no backup options to either Mo or Cody. We signed an attacking midfielder who is rarely played there. And two crazy expensive strikers when we play a one striker system. Nobody here has even begun to put forward a better answer to our current malaise than "throw Rio on from the start....put Calvin Ramsey on (despite him not being able to cut it in Scotland)."
Alisson's goal didn't secure the CL spot. We still had 2 more games to play. Of course his header was hugely important - but we still would have gotten a point from that game. We actually finished in 3rd that season of if I recall.
Yeah, that was it. Alisson’s goal put us into CL qualifying, but there still were 2? games left. As it turns out, as I remember, a combination of other teams’ results and ours in those last two games put us in.