Liverpool FC Forum

Why didnt we play the same team that won on Wednesday?

Konate is a accident waiting to happen.. Virg is passing on players, stepping up at the wrong times, showing no leadership. Kerkez has been dreadful since day one.. and Bradley finally gets his chance now Trents left and he's stunk the place out since.

That was just abysmal. Long gone is the feeling we can overturn any deficit because we just keep offering up chance after chance. They could of had 5 or 6 easy.

Starting games poorly is becoming a habit along with struggling in the 1st 45 mins. What did he say to them at half time, just keep going lads as you are because thats what it was. They where on top of us again from the off and where knocking loudly for number 3. Granted that was a soft penalty but it came from pressure sustained through constant attack so it was coming.

Kerkhez is all over the place and needs benching. Teams are targeting him as well because they see him as a weakness. Gakpo and Salah are so frustrating. It goes nowhere 99% of the time with them. Both are one trick ponies and easy to defend against. We haven't one decent tackler among the midfielders either. Either they don't even bother or they commit fouls but they get played through everytime. The pace the whole team is moving the ball at is painfully slow. Even on a counter attack we somehow manage to allow them to regroup the low block. All it does is draw us into their half so we can get ripped on the counter.

I think Szobozlai has been our best player consistently this season and again tonight. His energy is off the charts but just seems to be covering here there and everywhere for others who have vacated their position. Konate was decent as well keeping that Thiago lad quiet. Wirtz has the moves but just needs that extra second or two in such congested areas. Etitike was alright but if we keep on insisting to go wide left or right everytime it nullifies his game. Overall we had some good possession but just far too much of it ends up with nothing.  Losing 4 on the bounce is worrying and not sure Slot even knows what his best team is yet. We are still gifting goals and chances with no sign of it stopping. He should have made changes at HT as we only seem to get out of gear when he does.

We have a tough two weeks coming up so need to sharpen up.

Completely agree with what's being said, Arne did a great job last year looking after the shop as such but his deer/rabbit frozen in the headlights impression this season has shown he's nowhere near strong enough to be the manager of this club in the long term.
He's clearly afraid of upsetting some of our big name players, where we all hoped he was the next Bob following on from a Shankly-esque figure it turns out he is pretty much the polar opposite of a Bob.
Bob was absolutely ruthless when it came to bringing down the curtain on the careers of club legends indeed if anything looking at Jimmy Case and one or two others he had a habit of pulling the trigger a bit too early, but whether it was Emlyn Hughes, Tommy Smith, Ian Callaghan, John Toshack, Phil Thompson, Terry McDermott, Graeme Souness, Ray Clemence, Alan Kennedy etc etc etc etc you name it i'm talking players who often played near 700 hundred games for this club and in the case of Cally near 900, if you were anywhere near  30 and your performance levels started to drop you were gone no messing about.
As Shanks famously said in a telly interview in the early 70's when the country was going to rat sh.1t with strikes and power cuts and a 3 day week and massive queue's at petrol pumps etc talking about making big decisions and bold decisions as a manager he said if you can't make big decisions as a manager you are a bloody menance, he told the interviewer either make the decisions that need to be made or go find another job...go be a MP that's the job for people who can't make decisions.

Phucking painful. Not just last night's game but the season thus far. I really think Slot is like a deer in headlights right now and hasn't a notion what to do.
So many players just not turning up, or when they do they switch off, or won't put a shift in, bring no tenacity to the game, are too ponderous...
It's just awful to watch these days.

We can easily get outwide against these teams playing low blocks. The problem is when we get the ball outwide we cant do anything with it. Salah and Gakpo are so one footed and predictable that you know they're gonna cut in everytime. The best chances we had outwide was from Kerkez who hit the byline and whipped in a few balls that caused a little bit of panic. If fit id be tempted to play Frimpong RW and Rio LW.. but thats another couple of 5"6 guys in the team trying to defend set pieces.

The side is so unbalanced its painfull. All the money we spent and somehow we need a pacey winger, a CB, and a defensive midfielder.

bunglemark2 » Sun Oct 26, 2025 8:56 am wrote:Phucking painful. Not just last night's game but the season thus far. I really think Slot is like a deer in headlights right now and hasn't a notion what to do.
So many players just not turning up, or when they do they switch off, or won't put a shift in, bring no tenacity to the game, are too ponderous...
It's just awful to watch these days.

It has been all season in fact the rot started pretty much as soon as we secured the title in April. It's horrible calling for Arne to go because he did win number 20 for us and he is a likeable fella but he clearly has no idea to get us out of this mess other than keep on picking the same players and hoping for the best.
Our fv.ckin defence is fv.ckin abysmal, you can pretty much set your watch by us conceding at least a couple of goals including an early one, practically every game these days we re one down before we've had a chance to get going. In truth most games we are lucky it's only two, teams are creating chance after chance against us, we look like conceding at any moment. I honestly think a lower league back four would offer more resistance than our current back line at this point. What is the manager doing.

Think we are currently looking at multiple issues. Beginning to think we cocked up letting Diaz go and not having a another direct, pacey wide player with dribbling ability lined up to replace him.

In hindsight, do wonder whether both Isak and Ekiteke this window was overkill. Both quality players but wonder if we were best served maybe going for a genuine top quality wide player instead of say Ekiteke this window.

Clear Wirtz needs time but when we are playing this poorly and losing games not sure how much time we can afford to give him to settle in right now. I think in away games in the league, I'd be tempted to use him off the bench right now and just make ourselves more solid as he looks a bit lightweight at the moment.

Defensively, the two new lads at fullback are not at the level we need them to be right now. Kerkez looks like he still needs to make the jump from being a big fish in a small pond at Bournemouth where he may get away with slack bits of play to coming here and understanding he needs to be on it 100% and tighten up weak areas.

Doeboy wrote:Think we are currently looking at multiple issues. Beginning to think we cocked up letting Diaz go and not having a another direct, pacey wide player with dribbling ability lined up to replace him.

In hindsight, do wonder whether both Isak and Ekiteke this window was overkill. Both quality players but wonder if we were best served maybe going for a genuine top quality wide player instead of say Ekiteke this window.

Clear Wirtz needs time but when we are playing this poorly and losing games not sure how much time we can afford to give him to settle in right now. I think in away games in the league, I'd be tempted to use him off the bench right now and just make ourselves more solid as he looks a bit lightweight at the moment.

Defensively, the two new lads at fullback are not at the level we need them to be right now. Kerkez looks like he still needs to make the jump from being a big fish in a small pond at Bournemouth where he may get away with slack bits of play to coming here and understanding he needs to be on it 100% and tighten up weak areas.

I was no fan of Diaz as he wasn't good enough and just kept running into blind alleys with very little end product. He had to go imo as his time was up and we needed to improve in that position. The problem here is that we allowed Gakpo to fill that role which was a step down in terms of energy on the pitch. He isnt good enough and only there because hes Dutch.

Didn't think we would go back for Isak once we signed Hugo but they did. Its just as well because Isak is struggling for fitness and an impact. I believe we needed both tbh as what we have need far too many chances to hit the net.

Wirtz is a good player but hes struggling in that role and a lot of it is down to whats around him. Hes not defensive but alongside Gakpo, Salah, it leaves 3 players not tracking and gives them so much space to pick passes through. All 3 are a lot to carry at any one time.

Totally agree about the full backs and was never a fan of Kerkhez to begin with. He did play well for Bournemouth last season but its a big step up now. Hes literally the definition of all over the place. Frimpong is very lightweight as well.

The balance is wrong in the side. To many attack minded players and not enough steel. Jones, Mac, Szob, Wirtz cant tackle for love nor money. Add forwards that don't track and its mayhem when you are defending counter attacks. Virgil has lost a yard but yet still pushes into the oppo half leaving him vulnerable to the pace of a counter. It wasn't long ago that we where being linked with DM,s. Lavia, Caiceido and Zubimendi but somehow decided we can shoehorn Grav in. Slot gave him a free role as well this season because he was bored but I think hes just accommodating his fellow countrymen for loyalty. If I'm honest I think Slot is more from the Brenny mould than Jurgen where hes struggling to manage big players.

We have to go back to the basics and just become tough to beat by not giving goals away. Stop the marauding and bin the luxury players that aren't tracking as a team. Change tactics because they have been found out and are easy to play against. All thats down to management and coaching. We also need to spend in January on a CH and a DM. The DM is most important as he cant be playing Endo there. If he persists with the same tactics then hes gonna be under serious pressure. Our defence of our last title was the worst ever but we are on track to beat that. Last time we didn't spend any money so no excuses now for spending the biggest budget in the clubs history to achieve the same.

His out of depth, sorry to say but Slot ain't got a clue how to gel these players. His post match interviews are becoming cringe time after time. Reluctance to keep playing off form players, unable to figure out how to set up our side, unable to fix recurring issues. Last season he done well but tbh from Feb onwards we were shyte. The others flopped which made our task easier.

Don't expect it to get better, once he loses the dressing room he'll be out. My prediction he'll be gone by December.

Players we bought I assumed we were going to smash it for few years. We've signed a Donkey MK2 Moreno, a fragile c*nt who keeps getting injured. 2 £100+ players, one whoes struggled and one after having a b1tch fit all pre season didn't train with his team and is unfit.

Only player I like is Ekitike.

Also to add he snapped a pillock as his asst for this season.

redshade » Sun Oct 26, 2025 4:15 pm wrote:His out of depth, sorry to say but Slot ain't got a clue how to gel these players. His post match interviews are becoming cringe time after time. Reluctance to keep playing off form players, unable to figure out how to set up our side, unable to fix recurring issues. Last season he done well but tbh from Feb onwards we were shyte. The others flopped which made our task easier.

Don't expect it to get better, once he loses the dressing room he'll be out. My prediction he'll be gone by December.

Players we bought I assumed we were going to smash it for few years. We've signed a Donkey MK2 Moreno, a fragile c*nt who keeps getting injured. 2 £100+ players, one whoes struggled and one after having a b1tch fit all pre season didn't train with his team and is unfit.

Only player I like is Ekitike.

Also to add he snapped a pillock as his asst for this season.

It’s difficult to argue with any of this. 

Ekitike Has the making of a world class striker.

The rest of our new signings have flopped. And it’s early days, but some of them look like they aren’t good enough.

I don’t understand why Slot didn’t keep his winning team from the champions league match.

I always said that Slot won the league with Klopp’s team. That’s now gone and this is Slot’s team.

He’ll get time to fix it. But I honestly can’t see where our next league win comes from.

The truth stings 
But finally the realisation is setting in . Last seasons premiership success was won by Jurgens team. Slott was praised for not do anything, think we all know now that he didn't have too.
He was just a caretaker BUT now with millions spent he's been asked to step up to the plate and sadly he's failed to do so.
I could spend all day criticising individual players performance BUT with such a wealth of talent at his disposal I have to say the responsibility for our dire results so far this season lies solely with Slott.   

It's just so fecking disappointing.

If Slot wasn't feeling the pressure then he will now as far more are speaking out and questioning his ability. All eyes are on him now to find a solution so we will see what he does. He is at a crucial time I believe with both the players and Fans to show he isnt out of his depth. I think there is grumblings in the dressing room also due to his insistence on playing certain players regardless of form. Some players just know they haven't a chance with him and won't feature unless he has no other option. Its the same turgid set up in every game and its like either, they dont understand the plan or they just aren't listening. We struggle in the 1st half and just start the 2nd in the same manner. Then when it finally dawns on him its kitchen sink time. It happens far to much and proves his starting lineups and tactics are wrong from the start. Even if we are a bit better up front and take those chances, we will continue to concede at an alarming rate. We are just to open and look like a bottom half side from 5 years ago!!

Not calling for his head at all but things have got to change. There was a lot of upheaval in the summer which didn't help but we did spend plenty to replace them. We needed to upgrade a few anyway like Nunez, Diaz and Jota. Trent was going anyway and we replaced him. The biggest issue I see isnt the quality of replacements but the workrate we are getting from them. Those lads could be awful but they always worked hard. I really dont think Slot pushes them hard in training. Its gone from lightning stuff to turtle football and its not enjoyable to watch.

What makes it worse is Manure overtook us!!