Arne Slot

[baitman]

I think he needs to sort his game plan out, we look clueless out there

No chance of any hairdryer violent intimidation then

[Kenneth]

I thought his words in defeat were pitch perfect.

They always are, but then he drops in "maybe we were two offensively minded, not we, one player was too offensively minded which led to them scoring the winner and us losing the game". I feel that 'we' covered it and singling out someone like this isn't great on the back of an overall poor performance like that.

[labourRed]

I think he needs to sort his game plan out, we look clueless out there

I'm not going to say he's perfect but i think we just need patience while the players bed in. It's not going to click straightaway. The one that looks to have hit the ground running is Ekitike but the others are obviously going to need more time. We don't have an swful lot of training ground time either so we're just going to have to wait a few months i'm afraid.

[Norbs]

That's just not good enough

[Kenneth]

Our game plan doesn't make sense. Our transfer business screams overlapping fullbacks providing the width and a formation change to accommodate that is the next obvious inference. Without it our transfer business looks stupid on paper, and is looking a bit stupid in practice tbh. I'm looking at Slot and thinking that he must have a master plan that's not this, so just get on with it.

[danperkins]

The style of play and setup does seem counter productive to the players we have brought in.

[brightred]

We obviously need a defensive holding midfielder.

A destroyer.

A ****in animal.

I presume someone else has already said this so please don't tell me off

[Kenneth]

The style of play and setup does seem counter productive to the players we have brought in.

It's odd, it's the kind of issue you see when a new manager goes to a club and inherits someone's players, but slot had absolutely no issues with that last season, only now when he's bought his own players.

At times yesterday it did look as though grav was dropping back alongside the center backs, presumably with the intention of playing three at the back and having the fullbacks push on, but it didn't really work well. Teams are dropping deep and us having three attackers playing relatively narrowly gives them no incentive to leave their own 18 yards.

First step is to drop Salah and put an extra man in midfield and get grav back firmly in the 6 position. It will help us defensively and Wirtz can be given free roam to work in-between the lines. And that's why I'm paid the big bucks.

[danperkins]

it is very interesting alright and even though we are top of the league, most LFC fans could see we've had issues from the very first game and have rode our luck. We have been relying on late goals and individuals to get us out of trouble, there is a real lack of any sort of flow to our play & the new lads are struggling to make any sort of impact.

It really does seem like that whatever Slots plan.. it doesn't seem to be working quite right with the new players that he has brought in (Up to this point of course). With the way he sets us up, I'm a wee bit confused by why he brought in the players that he did... well provided that they were his choice that is. Salah is and has been way way off since January, his poor performances are becoming a real issue if he can't back it up with numbers which we are so used to seeing. We really are lacking a top DM to provide some stability in there, help the lads out in defence & let our creatives do what they do best.

[Doc_Piptorious]

We obviously need a defensive holding midfielder.

A destroyer.

A ****in animal.

I presume someone else has already said this so please don't tell me off

Who do you drop for him? Gravenberch or MacAllister?

The AM role will be held by one of Wirtz or Szobo, so one of the other two would need to be dropped to fit your destroyer in.

I'm very partial to that type of midfielder myself tbh, but think the game, at the very highest level, has moved past the very top teams having a destroyer unless that destroyer has great playmaking and/or ball retention skills as well.

Look at other teams, the other teams in Europe with the best midfields, and see how many have a destroyer of a DM in their teams.


PSG - They have gone with midfields containing very mobile, very fit but highly technical players. In many ways a number of their guys are footballing unicorns as they are so well rounded.


Real Madrid? - Some great midfielders there but no destroyer. The last destroyer they had they got rid of to the red Mancs.


Barca? - Agian great midfielders there that are highly technical, mobile and great all rounders rather than specialists in one role.


Bayern Munich, Inter, Man City, Arsenal? Same thing plays out with no real pure destroyer.


Seems to me that these days the destroyer seems to be more a thing in teams a tier or two below the very best one and that the destroyer's role in the modern game is to try and give the weaker team a chance to disrupt the flow of the better team. Almost like how a boxer might try to clinch and spoil against a fighter with better skills.

Even the teams that end up being surprise packages in the EPL, say like Bournemouth, tend to follow a midfield template that mimics that of the top tier clubs.


Think the closest these days, and at a big team, to a destroyer who can match any midfider in terms of technique/passing/ball retention/creativity would be someone like Zaire-Emery at PSG. He can break up play, disrupt fluidity in the other team and get stuck in hard, but at the same time when he gets a foot on the ball he can pass as well as anyone, create to a high level, go box to box and rarely misplace a pass. But players like that are very rare these days imo.

He is also helped by having guys like Ruiz with him in the middle as they can put in almost as good a shift defensively, but are highly technical at the same time.


Think the next closest to Zaire-Emery in terms of being a footballing unicorn might be Camavinga at Real but he is proven to be quite injury prone. The kid has everything in his game imo though. Brilliant at left back, brilliant out wide on either flank, brilliant as a CM and brilliant as a DM. Crazy energy levels off the ball and constantly hunts down either the ball or a way to cut off the channels.

[kingfunk]

Hopefully this palace game can be a wake up call like Forest last year, no result is guaranteed nor are late winning goals, time to start playing like champions and being ruthless af again. Don’t mind seeing the lads having a great time at the training ground, looks like last day of school there sometimes, but time to put the boot own now, because arsenal really really want this, and my eyes will haemorrhage if the win it.

[Corndog]

We obviously need a defensive holding midfielder.

A destroyer.

A ****in animal.

I presume someone else has already said this so please don't tell me off

I don’t think so, a lot of the breaks against palace came in the channels between cb and fullback.

Whatever happens, it will take time because there have been so many changes at once.

I’d like to see one fullback stay back if the other goes up for a bit.

Konate has had a patchy start to the season but I think the team are asking a lot of him and VVD to do often be so exposed to the counter attack.

The attack will click at some point, just a matter of players getting used to things.

[baitman]

The high line defence is really doing us no favours.

[BG1973]

In theory it does from attacking perspective, but Konate is struggling, salah doesn't get back and Kerkez is relatively slow compared to PL wide men. And we dont have that Fabinho type who loves a long legged tackle. Grav is not that player.

[Irishnev]

The high line defence is really doing us no favours.

We’ve done it for years and it’s allowed us to be very successful but a high line gets exposed when the guys ahead of the CBs font do their jobs. They need to stop the balls being played easily into space.

We set up tactically very different vs Palace than we’ve done every game under Slot, I think Palace are in his head as we’ve not beaten them in tge last meetings and they always cause us problems. He went with a box to match theirs but we didn’t match up physically. Away to Palace who are arguably the form and most well drilled team in England seemed a strange place to experiment