Arne Slot

[Kenneth]

But that's not happening, so what do we do without dropping another £150m+? Either slot makes the squad work or someone else will have to. Shame we can't just load the old save file, but we are stuck with these players and can't have much more money to spend. It's insane we bought a squad that doesn't match the manager's system, but the system is going to have to change because the squad won't change significantly any time soon.

[kingfunk]

I agree, we are probably not throwing another huge amount of money at this in January, so Slot has to find a way with what he has and adapt the system to the squad. It makes no real sense to sack him this season because the bigger picture matters more than a rough spell. The squad is young and there is enough talent here to keep us from falling off a cliff in the coming years. We just need to steady the ship and rebuild properly in the summer. BUT, it has to happen fast.

[Exiled_red]

But that's not happening, so what do we do without dropping another £150m+? Either slot makes the squad work or someone else will have to. Shame we can't just load the old save file, but we are stuck with these players and can't have much more money to spend. It's insane we bought a squad that doesn't match the manager's system, but the system is going to have to change because the squad won't change significantly any time soon.

This is the confusing part for me, the recruitment is supposed to be a team of people including the manager, it feels like they weren't talking to one another. It feels like the 90's again where we bought players because we believe them to be good players, but had no idea what to do with them.

[peterbread]

I feel like Slot would be making some noises if there was a disconnect in transfers. He’d either do it himself or there would be some stories coming out about it.

We don’t know what his plan was for this season so to say the players don’t fit his system isn’t something we can answer. Maybe he has tried to change too much and the club have backed him after what he did last season. Maybe Hughes got carried away. But you’d expect something to start filtering out if there were issues between the two.

We have to look at the history of how the club buys players under the owners and managers do get a big say.

There is no doubting the quality of the players but what the plan was we don’t really know but something has to change for it to get back on track. Is that the tactics he’s trying to implement, the training methods, Slot, Hughes or both. But carrying on doing the same thing isn’t the answer.

[Exiled_red]

Caught a bit of conversation on Redmen TV about the sentiment of fans, and how there seems to be an ambulance about his job being in question. He has won us a title, he's brought in a business like attitude to the job (his family don't live here, he doesn't talk about the city or engage with the city much, he doesn't show his emotions etc), it's a job and when he's winning it's all good. But there isn't an emotional bond with the fans, younger fans have known nothing but klopp and are used to a sort of father figure. He has credit with the fans for the success last year, but nobody is really invested in his tenure, or his personal success or failure. The fan sentiment could turn from ambivalence to hostility pretty quickly now if things don't change asap.

He's not as emotional or personable as Klopp was, but Klopp was a one off. I think he has to be quite different from Klopp otherwise he would get criticism for trying to be Klopp or whatever. He needs to be his own man. We as a club have to get used to the idea that there isn't another manager like Klopp and after the time he was at the club that will be difficult for us and for many of the players who have to get used to the new approach.

[DerKrampus]

Caught a bit of conversation on Redmen TV about the sentiment of fans, and how there seems to be an ambulance about his job being in question. He has won us a title, he's brought in a business like attitude to the job (his family don't live here, he doesn't talk about the city or engage with the city much, he doesn't show his emotions etc), it's a job and when he's winning it's all good. But there isn't an emotional bond with the fans, younger fans have known nothing but klopp and are used to a sort of father figure. He has credit with the fans for the success last year, but nobody is really invested in his tenure, or his personal success or failure. The fan sentiment could turn from ambivalence to hostility pretty quickly now if things don't change asap.

He's basically an office manager?

[Charly]

For me his personality does not come into it.

Results and performance are all that matters

[Kenneth]

I was suggesting that it comes into the fan sentiment, which probably has some degree of influence over the decisions made by the club. How much influence, who knows? Personally, I'm with you, I don't need the emotional connection etc. But if we start winning games consistently, it mostly goes away anyway, but maybe not entirely. This period will leave a scar on Slot either way.

[Yozza]

One thing that never stood well with me was them all partying in Ibiza or wherever after we’d won the league

We still had several games left & as a professional football club we still owed it to the fans to be 100% committed & switched on

Maybe I’m old fashioned – well, I am – but you celebrate at the end of the season; I just thought it made us look a bit small time

As I said, it just irritated me seeing Slot bounce around like a teenager on E

[Sus]

One thing that never stood well with me was them all partying in Ibiza or wherever after we’d won the league

We still had several games left & as a professional football club we still owed it to the fans to be 100% committed & switched on

Maybe I’m old fashioned – well, I am – but you celebrate at the end of the season; I just thought it made us look a bit small time

As I said, it just irritated me seeing Slot bounce around like a teenager on E

I agree, I really wanted us to hit 90 points too, just to put Arsenal in their rightful place (petty I know).

I was OK with it, though, as I remember reading the idea was to take a rare oppirtunity to give the players an extended break to be raring to go this season

And then we turn up looking quite undercooked and losing far more duels than last season, which tells me part of the problem is desire and motivation

[kingfunk]

One thing that never stood well with me was them all partying in Ibiza or wherever after we’d won the league

We still had several games left & as a professional football club we still owed it to the fans to be 100% committed & switched on

Maybe I’m old fashioned – well, I am – but you celebrate at the end of the season; I just thought it made us look a bit small time

As I said, it just irritated me seeing Slot bounce around like a teenager on E

Didn’t bother me to be fair, the job was done. They earned it.

[Kenneth]

It didn't bother me either until our results went to ****, and that did.

[kingfunk]

Ok, I’ve decided even if we lose every game between now and the start February, I want to keep slot in place. We need a couple of additions in January but mainly a CB, get Konate out of the team for as long as it takes. Then I’ll judge Slot in the new year.

[Buzzo]

It certainly wasn’t the box of medals in the centre of the changing room and ‘go and get one of you think you’ve deserved it’ mentality of the classic boot room days.

I was the same, quite surprised to see the levels of celebration given the season was still going on, but not that bothered. But then our results went to **** and have stayed **** so perhaps there is something in it from a psychological pov - you can’t just switch it on and off.

[Cerbie]

I think switching off and enjoying the celebrations for winning the league were fair enough last season.

Changing personnel over the summer was always going to lead to the forming/storming/norming/performing team building cycle being reset.

When a team is in the performing phase, you could argue that the style of leadership from Slot didn't matter. However, with the number of changes in and out that we made, getting the group together as a unit does require a more charismatic leader (imho) to accelerate that forming phase. That's before we factor in the impact of the loss of Jota.