Andrew Robertson

[kingfunk]

He’ll get plenty of playing time in the championship.

[Mark79]

The Spurs move is dependent on them not getting relegated.

He has other options, nothing finalised yet.

[Yozza]

[ame="https://youtu.be/USIuoMpFM-4?"]Rihanna - Goodbye Andy Robertson, You Will Never Walk Alone - YouTube[/ame]

[peterbread]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl7KDpt0wuM"]One Of Us: Becoming Andy Robertson - YouTube[/ame]

[Scratch]

A snippet from the interview he gave to the Telegraph the other day:

‘The devastation we went through... football didn’t matter’

“In terms of the club I’m leaving behind I think we are not at the stage [when I signed] in 2017,” he says. “We are at the transition stage. We won the league last year, the environment was very similar. We had to go at 100 per cent in every game and the messages were very clear from the manager.

“Now this year hasn’t worked out for a variety of reasons. We can’t hide away from it – and it isn’t an excuse – but what we went through in the summer, I hope no team or member of staff will ever go through it. The devastation we went through... football didn’t matter.” This was not the plan to talk about Diogo Jota, a kindred spirit who loved nothing more than being alongside Robertson, but it is crucial we do. There is no timeframe on bereavement and it should not be overlooked how emotionally intolerable things have been at times for this group.

“We didn’t care about football for weeks,” Robertson says, revisiting the aftermath of the car crash last July that claimed the lives of Jota and his brother André Silva. “None of us wanted to train. That was the reality. You were getting treatment off physios and they didn’t want to treat you [as they were too upset].

“As footballers we have a duty, we have to move on. We have to keep going and we managed that. The [opening] Bournemouth game was ridiculously emotional with all of Jots’ family being there.

“I think in the 20th minute [when the Liverpool fans chanted for Jota, who wore the No 20 shirt] you saw a real dip in our performance after that [even though Liverpool won 4-2] because of the emotional impact it had on all of us. But then the season has been up and down, it has been inconsistent.”

Again, he stresses, this is not about making excuses. But listening to him talk, his voice slightly cracking at times, it gives a great deal of perspective. Yes, results have been bad; yes, form has been patchy, but losses on a football pitch can be corrected.

[Sus]

A snippet from the interview he gave to the Telegraph the other day:

I came on here to post that as well!

Really puts some of this season's challenges in perspective.

Not all, of course, but it shows just the emotional toll on the football club of that tragedy, and how much it disrupted pre-season

[Buzzo]

He talks about Jota in an interview with Ian Wright, I think this is lifted from that. It’s on YouTube.

He makes his point very well.

[Doc_Piptorious]

He talks about Jota in an interview with Ian Wright, I think this is lifted from that. It’s on YouTube.

He makes his point very well.

A point many on here dimissed as not being valid.

Plenty argued that plenty of time has passed or that the death should not be having an impact months later.

We had Kelleher come out and say that the players he knew at Liverpool just did not care about football, results or training this season but that got a yeah but time has passed attitude.

Now we have Robertson saying the same thing. We also have him commenting on the fact they get reminded of their now gone friend in every game.

People keep saying if all the senior players lose form at the same time that the cause must be the same and usually the only answer people can come up with is Slot. Comments from the likes of Kelleher and Robertson suggest otherwise.

[Buzzo]

I made that point also.

Robbo also says it shouldn’t be used as an excuse. As a factor it’s unquantifiable, but it requires great levels of leadership. And no doubt Slot was affected also.

Sadly, the probable outcome that is required to help everyone move forwards is regime change.

The dynamic has broken. How it might have been had Jota not died we will never know.

[Scratch]

I made that point also.

Robbo also says it shouldn’t be used as an excuse. As a factor it’s unquantifiable, but it requires great levels of leadership. And no doubt Slot was affected also.

Sadly, the probable outcome that is required to help everyone move forwards is regime change.

Or, those that were closest to Jota or most affected by his passing move on to pastures new, where the reminder isn't so stark and their malaise doesn't unintentionally rub off on the others in the squad. Changing the regime won't impact that, if the players most hurt by his passing cannot move on themselves.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I made that point also.

Robbo also says it shouldn’t be used as an excuse. As a factor it’s unquantifiable, but it requires great levels of leadership. And no doubt Slot was affected also.

Sadly, the probable outcome that is required to help everyone move forwards is regime change.

The dynamic has broken. How it might have been had Jota not died we will never know.

No it is not an excuse, but it may be, and most likely is, a reason why some of what we saw on the pitch (and probably off of it) has played out as it has.

It's easy to say it is down to the coach to make people train, to help people get over things and so on, but if you have a squad of players and background staff that just do not want to train, that do not want to be there and that are emotionally battered, then there is no quick or even medium term fix that "cures" all of them at the same time.

I know I am preaching to the choir saying that you you of course.


In Sports Psychology you do receive knowledge and training on how to help an athlete through a personal loss. How to avoid things like trying to encourage a bounce back, how the grief stages need to be made a normal process, how the sport is to be made secondary, how the setting up of safe spaces to escape reminders are needed and so on.

But with our team it is an entire squad (and background staff) that suffered the same loss, they have no chance to avoid an enforced bounce back as the season started and they have to be on the pitch, they could not grieve normally as the media was all over it, they could have the sport is secondary or safe space stages as they were right back to where they would meet the person that was lost to them and his name gets sung in every game.

We could not give individuals extended time off as it would have meant having no team.

Almost every single thing the team went through since last summer pretty much flies in the face of all the best practises advised in sports psychology when it comes to an athlete suffering a tragic loss in their personal life.

Helping an athlete that suffered a loss is tough and requires a lot of tailored plans to be implemented for him or her, but I cannot imagine the close to impossible nature of having to do that for an entire squad who lost a teammate when all your training and experience of sports psychology cannot be put into place in the manner with with you are taught to do.

[frank the tank]

A point many on here dimissed as not being valid.

Plenty argued that plenty of time has passed or that the death should not be having an impact months later.

We had Kelleher come out and say that the players he knew at Liverpool just did not care about football, results or training this season but that got a yeah but time has passed attitude.

Now we have Robertson saying the same thing. We also have him commenting on the fact they get reminded of their now gone friend in every game.

People keep saying if all the senior players lose form at the same time that the cause must be the same and usually the only answer people can come up with is Slot. Comments from the likes of Kelleher and Robertson suggest otherwise.

Famous quote from Bill Shanks has come back to haunt lfc when we went through Hillsborough and the same could be said for the passing of Diogo.

The game at the very top level, the margins are so ****in small and it doesnt take much to impact results.

Grief impacts us all in many different ways - but when you have a squad of players and 11 on the pitch, then it only takes a few of them to be impacted for that to hit the results of the team. The performances have probably been impacted more than the results.

And also the integration of our new players must surely have been impacted by the grief in the existing players too.


The football has still been garbage though and the tactics too. In slots defense though, none of the players had a proper preseason, we've been ****ed over by injuries, and they have had the cloud of grief over them.

[Catrin]

I’ve watched his interview with Ian Wright and also the one with John Gibbons. In both it is very clear how close he is with his teammates. With us and also with Scotland he refers to them several times as his best mates.

I know people eulogise but by all accounts Diogo was a genuinely great bloke. Maybe we don’t realise how close he was with his teammates, how much they loved him and how deeply they grieve his loss.

[super_xabi]

Could possibly also maybe play into the fact that we seem to drop off fitness levels wise towards the end of games. If they even dropped to 95% effort in pre-season building up fitness then that could have carried across the entire season if they weren't absolutely on it like normal

[vlahka]

Yes the players and I guess the background staff were affected by his passing. But I still cant accept that as the reason they've been horrid for the entire year. Points against this, players have los family members, friends, and even teammates at our club and many other clubs and those players have come back after a few games and played well again. We also won our first 7 games straight, which should have been the perfect time for them to be losing everything because of focus. The other thing is they have massive support at the club for their psychological needs.

So we go with all that, we then ask was Henry fine with letting the whole season go out the window, as sports is heavily reliant on money, which means performance cant drop too much for too long. Would he have not bothered to improve something. Are the psychologists we have not able to lift at least some players. After an entire season they're still playing the same so are we to put on the table that we should clear out the entire team and staff since they're all sad turning up to liverpool. And if not, what then come next season they're all the same? Do we then get rid of them all? Do we let it continue indefinitely?

And lets not forget the team tactics. Doesnt matter if you're sad or happy, you can see the teams tactics are completely different to how it used to be. Thats coaching staff. Thats Slot. And giving them plenty of breaks throughout the season instead of training, thats also something that will affect performances and fitness and tactics, which then affects the outcome of games. I still say the Jota issue is probably only 30% of the issue. I say that because they won their first 7 games straight when everything was still raw. If they were winning at the worst time, then why are they losing so much after so much time has passed. Slot, training staff, 70%.