Arne Slot

[peterbread]

It’s frustration because we saw what the team can be tonight. Yes they’re crap but that team would have beaten better opponents tonight the way they were allowed to play because of the system that was used.

He had Salah in the area of the pitch he’s most dangerous rather than wider. He had the fullbacks offering the width instead of playing narrow.

Wirtz and Salah picking up the ball in dangerous areas and Szoboszlai playing in midfield. Gravenberch and Mac Alister more controlled and balanced and it looks much better.

It shows you what the team can do. And even with injuries you can still play players in positions they can make a difference in. Earlier in the season he kept playing Bradley and Kerkez so narrow and Gakpo and Salah so wide. You are not getting the best out of any of them like that. It just didn’t work.

It’s frustration at seeing him do the same thing over and over that didn’t work and then when you set them up to get the best out of them they look a completely different team.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Hate to see you lads had we lost tonight

[danperkins]

When you see a performance like that, intensity, aggression, passion and all at a fast pace vs albeit a poor side... you have to wonder is Arne putting the tactical chains on the lads and purposely making the lads slow up our play in the prem? It certainly reads like that. As a side, the players look so muchore comfortable we they are allowed to play their natural free flowing game and express themselves.

[Buzzo]

Maybe or maybe they were made look more poor than they are. Either way a good result, a good performance by players and manager and a night to let the footy put smiles on faces.

We played well tonight for sure.

But they were terrible both legs. Rely heavily on getting field position by falling over in contact. What tonight shows is that if we bring our A game we will create a lot of chances.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Galatasaray were poor, but we look a much better side when we play with more intensity and move the ball quicker

Maybe or maybe they were made look more poor than they are. Either way a good result, a good performance by players and manager and a night to let the footy put smiles on faces.

[peterbread]

A rare chance to enjoy the performance. It was something we haven’t seen enough of this season.

But you can ask the question why they aren’t allowed to play with more freedom. They don’t have to be all out like earlier in the season but we have some seriously talented creative players, let them do their thing.

And play Szoboszlai in midfield and anyone else at right back.

[Exiled_red]

Galatasaray were poor, but we look a much better side when we play with more intensity and move the ball quicker

[Doc_Piptorious]

Just enjoy the win of the night, lads.

We can bitch about the losses and dull perfromances when they happen again.

[danperkins]

Needs to back it up tho. And figure out why we played with tempo, pace and purpose tonight. Handbreak seemed to come off- but who is putting it on?

Not confident about Brighton away Sat am I must say.

[Buzzo]

Needs to back it up tho. And figure out why we played with tempo, pace and purpose tonight. Handbreak seemed to come off- but who is putting it on?

Not confident about Brighton away Sat am I must say.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Arne slot

nah nah naah na na

[Cerbie]

Dire straits could be used in a different context in that article.

[labourRed]

Dire straits could be used in a different context in that article.

[badpiggy]

Liverpool may end up getting rid of Slot purely because they cannot think of what else to do

Jonathan Liew

Arne Slot has gone from being hailed as one of the best coaches in the world to appearing likely to be sacked by Liverpool in less than a year. Liverpool may end up getting rid of Slot purely because they cannot think of what else to do


The head coach is not responsible for many of the problems at Anfield but he is the most obvious target for those seeking reasons for the team’s decline

It was the coffee bar at the training ground, installed by the Fenway Sports Group’s chief executive, Michael Edwards, after he got the idea from visiting Roma. It was Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits, added to the post-match playlist by Alisson and which could be heard booming out of the Liverpool dressing room after victories. It was the video analysis. It was the data. It was the pre-season fitness tests. It was the close collaboration between the football and sports science departments. It was everything that changed from the Jürgen Klopp era. It was everything that stayed the same from the Jürgen Klopp era.

Victory brings a dazzling clarity. Particularly a victory as resounding as Liverpool’s unexpected 10-point romp to the Premier League title last season. It turns the cogs, powers the houses, confers a sunlit aura of genius on everyone involved. So with a certain uncharitable hindsight, it is instructive to go back to late April 2025 and read about how everyone thought Liverpool had done it. And why everyone – wrongly – thought they were going to do it again.

It was the AI-driven load management model devised by Conall Murtagh, the head of physical performance. It was the unfettered happiness of Mohamed Salah, the accidental masterstroke of Ryan Gravenberch as a linchpin midfielder. And, of course, it was the cerebral genius of Arne Slot, this enlightened son of the Dutch soil with the pate of a newborn baby and the manner of your favourite teacher, and who around 11 months ago was being talked about very seriously as one of the best coaches in the world.


Alas, it appears Slot now has to go. Sorry, that’s just how it works. The performances have simply been too unsatisfying, the pace of play too slow, the vibes too stale. Against Tottenham on Sunday the final whistle was greeted with boos from the Liverpool fans who had not already left. The mood has gone from skittish to mutinous. Jamie Carragher has felt things and, like Walter Cronkite during the Vietnam war, if you’ve lost Carragher then you’ve lost Middle Liverpool.

Liverpool are fifth in the Premier League, still in the Champions League, and have accumulated more league points since the start of last season than anybody bar Arsenal. On the other hand, Liverpool are fifth in the Premier League, on the verge of elimination from the Champions League, and on pace to drop 22 points from last season. How much of this is on Slot? What even is it in the first place? What can be fixed and salvaged and what demands to be changed?

The short answer – spoiler alert – is that nobody really knows. Nobody can judge the extent to which Slot is responsible for the decline of Salah or Alexis Mac Allister, for Liverpool’s skittish summer transfer business, for the injuries, for the inability to convert a four-on-two breakaway or clear a simple long ball. We can certainly say he was not responsible for the death of Diogo Jota and the emotional turmoil that followed, but we have no real way of knowing whether it had any material effect on results.


One of the problems facing Arne Slot (right) is how to handle Mohamed Salah when the Egypt forward appears to be in decline. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters
But there does seem to be a basic assumption that the job he inherited in 2024 – improving an unbalanced squad while evolving its style in a high-pressure environment with an impatient fanbase – and the job he now has in 2026, improving an unbalanced squad while evolving its style in a high-pressure environment with an impatient fanbase, are basically two entirely separate functions, as different as IT support and cosmetic dentistry. In its cruder forms it finds voice in the view that last season was basically “Klopp’s title” with “Klopp’s team”.

And, really, the Slot discourse cuts to the paradox of modern coaching. The lines of authority are diffuse. Recruitment is done by committee. The broader strategy is decided upstairs. Tactics are basically an unsatisfactory palimpsest of multiple factors: what the last guy did, what the players feel comfortable doing, what part of a footballing vision can realistically be conveyed to limbs on a pitch. The coach is basically a flavour, an aroma, an ambience, and when a team that won the league by a wide margin last season looks so far off the pace next time round, perhaps it is no wonder people will reverse-engineer the easiest route back to salvation.

Naturally, everyone will have their own pet theory for Liverpool’s regression. The failure to reinforce in midfield or at centre-back. The turbulence of the summer. Dominik Szoboszlai at right-back. The lack of leaders. There have been weird selections and questionable substitutions. Perhaps it is Slot’s misfortune that his doctrine of extreme control and elite pressing happened to collide with the Premier League’s 17th-century village football era; long throws and long balls being hurled into the penalty area like giant scotch eggs fired from a trebuchet. But what we have no real way of knowing is how much of this is noise, snap reactions to short-term disappointment.


Dominik Szoboszlai (right) has looked uncomfortable when deployed at full-back and this has been reflected in Liverpool’s performances. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
In a way the modern big-club coach takes the job with the full awareness that they are basically a narrative device, a reset button to press when things get sticky, a meat sacrifice that allows everyone else to indulge the illusion of renewal. You can’t shift the owners and you can’t sell an entire playing squad. So the purpose of the manager is essentially to be fired: to be responsible for the things they’re not really responsible for, to be immediately disposable, to provide the illusion of a simple solution where none exists.

Indeed, to take the most cynical view, you could argue that Slot has already served his purpose. The post-Klopp cliff-edge was spectacularly avoided. Liverpool fans are in various shades of disgruntlement, for reasons often only tangentially related to the 22 guys they’re watching on the grass. A few Liverpool-supporting friends have mentioned the beefed-up security checks at Anfield, generating long queues outside the ground and perhaps even contributing to so many of this season’s slow starts.

Slot is not responsible for this, either. But he will be made to carry the can nonetheless, the price for being the simplest target in an incredibly complex sport. It isn’t the security checks, any more than it was the coffee bar or the data or the Dire Straits. But in an age of overanalysis and short-term solutions, he will have to go anyway, largely because nobody can think of a better idea.

One of the best things about us being **** is that there are great journalists writing about it

[danperkins]

Tonight will be interesting as a Europe night game at Anfield should be a great atmosphere trying to help overturn a deficit. I’m sure the crowd will be up from the start but will frustration come out if it’s the same football and they struggle to break them down. You they are going to waste every second they can and make the most of any contact as well.

I'd say the place be will bouncing, European nights usually are but all it takes is a stale start from the team or them to score a goal & you'd worry the crowd might turn. Was chattign to my uncle who was at the game and he said there was a lot of boos. Usually I would be very confident but we just look so fragile & Anfield hasn't been a fortress for us either this season. Gala are no great shakes defensively but they can score goals and they will get chances.