Arne Slot

[Rich]

We conceded while Gomez was off the field and we were down to ten men. Slot had clearly told the team to kick the ball out to allow the substitution, but apparently Alisson and Van Dijk made a ‘ongield decision’ and chose to keep the ball in play and we paid the price. That absolves Slot of direct blame for that goal, but it also exposes a bigger problem: if players are ignoring him in key moments, then his control and authority are lacking. Either way, I don’t like it.

Exactly. He’s lost the senior players. Can you imagine them doing that with Klopp?! He’s tear them to shreds (behind closed doors)

[Exiled_red]

As furious as I am with Slot for the style of play and decisions he makes I have alot of sympathy because the squad isn't big enough or balanced enough or fit enough, for the season, constantly having to shift players around square pegs in round holes much of that isn't on him.

When we fail to make CL spots that is as much on Hughes and Co as it is on Slot

[marcus50bucks]

We are reaching the end game with Slot imo. I didn't think he would get sacked during the season, but the way things are looking, I am not so sure he sees it out. Looking at the league table, we could be 8th if results don't go our way, today. Below are our next 4 league games:

Newcastle (h)
Man City (h)
Sunderland (a)
Forest (a)

Honestly, if we slip further and further away from the CL positions after those 4 fixtures, I genuinely think he will be relieved of his duties. The one reason I felt we would keep him was if we were still in the CL and in the CL spots, but the minute it looks like we are falling off the pace for the top four, he will be on squeaky bum time.

One thing is for certain, he will not be here next season imo. The only thing that saves him is winning the CL

His use of the squad is just terrible. What is the point of having Ramsay on the bench if you don't trust him? The minute Frimpong was substituted, Ramsay should have come on. You just knew he would put Szoboszlai there though.

[Kenneth]

The comment about Kerkez and Ekitike being in the red zone has really pissed me off with the squad depth. Yesterday we had the starting 11 plus 3 subs that he trusted and two others he was forced to make. We didn't start our only fit CF because he was in the red zone fitness wise and we took Kerkez off for the same reason. We ended up with 2 midfielders in the back 4 and a guy who we are expecting to move on this window. The injury situation isn't going to get much better, Isak, Bradley and Leoni are all moreor less done for the season, Gomez will come back from injury but will pick up more, Chiesa will be back but barely plays anyway, we are only half way through the season and we are seriously worried about players in the red zone, that too is unlikely to get better only worse, and we are playing **** at the best of times, no way we are making top 4 this season unless something dramatic happens.

Whoever is on the transfer committee or whatever the **** we are calling it has some serious questions to answer as they have really ****ed up our squad building. You can argue that it was a 2 year plan or whatever but we don't make CL this season and it becomes a hell of alot harder. Really am pissed off about this.

We went into the season with 2 left backs, 3 right backs, 4 centre backs and some positional flexibility with Gomez, Szobo and Endo. When did we last have more defensive cover than that? We also have a load of U21 players they could come in as cover in some games but I doubt the manager even knows that they exist.

[kemm1]

As furious as I am with Slot for the style of play and decisions he makes I have alot of sympathy because the squad isn't big enough or balanced enough or fit enough, for the season, constantly having to shift players around square pegs in round holes much of that isn't on him.

When we fail to make CL spots that is as much on Hughes and Co as it is on Slot

Agreed, the squad is not balanced but Slot still has to go. Hughes can go too. They just need to go now. Too much talk. The slide started around March 2025 on my opinion. This isn't new.

[Harv]

Exactly. He’s lost the senior players. Can you imagine them doing that with Klopp?! He’s tear them to shreds (behind closed doors)

Klopp would've torn strips off them on the field. He'd have been losing his ****ing **** at them on the sideline.

Slot has no power or control of these guys. Just look how Salah has waltzed his way back into the side

[Sus]

Agreed, the squad is not balanced but Slot still has to go. Hughes can go too. They just need to go now. Too much talk. The slide started around March 2025 on my opinion. This isn't new.

That is the key point in my mind. Not sure where I sit on Slot in or out during the season but this isn’t new, and that’s the concern.

The issues have been around for almost a year now, and we seem further away from the answer, while being 450m quid poorer for it

[Kenneth]

He took Frimpong off because he showed 'signs of fatigue', so he sacrificed both Frimpong's attacking threat, and Szobo's midfield (and goalscoring) work for that. I'm not an expert, but compared to other players on the pitch at the time, Frimpong looked full of beans to me. And even if Ramsey isn't a very good right back, it's still got to be better to cope with that than reshape your midfield and lose your main pressing weapon. His in-game management is wank.

[Exiled_red]

He took Frimpong off because he showed 'signs of fatigue', so he sacrificed both Frimpong's attacking threat, and Szobo's midfield (and goalscoring) work for that. I'm not an expert, but compared to other players on the pitch at the time, Frimpong looked full of beans to me. And even if Ramsey isn't a very good right back, it's still got to be better to cope with that than reshape your midfield and lose your main pressing weapon. His in-game management is wank.

There is something massively off fitness wise, I know we have players who have come back from injuries and we had issues in preseason and players new ho thr league will take time to get used to the intensity etc but we have a squad with about 15 trusted players available, we have done some rotation at points but half the side are knackered after an hour and 3 players had their involvement yesterday limited because they were red zone threats for injury. The intensity of the football isn't even that high. Ut we really don't have squad numbers or quality to deal with it. Surely the sports science guys should have can idea of everyone's fitness levels how much we can expect them to play and therefore how many players we need in each position and that should be factored into squad building

[Irishnev]

There is something massively off fitness wise, I know we have players who have come back from injuries and we had issues in preseason and players new ho thr league will take time to get used to the intensity etc but we have a squad with about 15 trusted players available, we have done some rotation at points but half the side are knackered after an hour and 3 players had their involvement yesterday limited because they were red zone threats for injury. The intensity of the football isn't even that high. Ut we really don't have squad numbers or quality to deal with it. Surely the sports science guys should have can idea of everyone's fitness levels how much we can expect them to play and therefore how many players we need in each position and that should be factored into squad building

Ruben Pieters was lauded for keeping players available at Feyenoord and last season we had superb availability. He’s a disciple of the “famous” Raymond the egg Verheijen and his periodisation approach which keeps players fresh. This means you train less intensely and allow more time off so players should be match fresh.

It seems our players are then struggling late in games with the physical demands as they’ve no base built up. Contrast that with Andy Kornmayer who ran lads into the ground and broke our more fragile players like Thiago and Naby

I guess a middle ground would be good but what do I know

[Kenneth]

But this is slot, he only plays a small number of players, even if he had to shoehorn them into suboptimal positions. If we're desperate for players, use players that are already at the club. Bringing through young players is supposed to be part of his job.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Ruben Pieters was lauded for keeping players available at Feyenoord and last season we had superb availability. He’s a disciple of the “famous” Raymond the egg Verheijen and his periodisation approach which keeps players fresh. This means you train less intensely and allow more time off so players should be match fresh.

It seems our players are then struggling late in games with the physical demands as they’ve no base built up. Contrast that with Andy Kornmayer who ran lads into the ground and broke our more fragile players like Thiago and Naby

I guess a middle ground would be good but what do I know

It works very well, for team sports, when you have a pool of players available to be able to rotate. That way you take advantage of the benefits of the different cycles by which I means you can have different groups within your squad on a lagging cycle so that as one group is coming towards the natural end of a mesocycle, the other group is approaching the mid stages of their own one.


You would normally go with an undulating (means you can have individual levels for different players to avoid over stressing the limits of some of the group) model to avoid plateaus.


With our injuries this season, our broken pre season and what not, I would have thought that using a periodisation model (Undulating or linear) would not really be something that would give an optimal return as we never enough of the squad available for long enough periods of time to correctly implement symbiotic cycles between two groups and we would constantly be taking players who are at one stage of their training and having to drop them in with players that may be either ahead or behind them in fitness/conditioning and then the entire unit suffers as the ones that are at the right level have a greater work load due to having to carry those that are not cooked just right and those that are not quite ready run the risk of muscualr injries and stamina issues as they never get up to speed.

Then all the players are chucked back into their cycles again, the cycles get broken again and you end up with situations where players are actually hitting plateaus (lower ones) again and again over the course of the season instead of avoiding plateaus or having less of them.

[Irishnev]

It works very well, for team sports, when you have a pool of players available to be able to rotate. That way you take advantage of the benefits of the different cycles by which I means you can have different groups within your squad on a lagging cycle so that as one group is coming towards the natural end of a mesocycle, the other group is approaching the mid stages of their own one.


You would normally go with an undulating (means you can have individual levels for different players to avoid over stressing the limits of some of the group) model to avoid plateaus.


With our injuries this season, our broken pre season and what not, I would have thought that using a periodisation model (Undulating or linear) would not really be something that would give an optimal return as we never enough of the squad available for long enough periods of time to correctly implement symbiotic cycles between two groups and we would constantly be taking players who are at one stage of their training and having to drop them in with players that may be either ahead or behind them in fitness/conditioning and then the entire unit suffers as the ones that are at the right level have a greater work load due to having to carry those that are not cooked just right and those that are not quite ready run the risk of muscualr injries and stamina issues as they never get up to speed.

Then all the players are chucked back into their cycles again, the cycles get broken again and you end up with situations where players are actually hitting plateaus (lower ones) again and again over the course of the season instead of avoiding plateaus or having less of them.

Much more detail than me

Ken said it above, his lack of trust in players is killing us and now he’s fighting for his life he’ll trust certain players even less

[danperkins]

We conceded while Gomez was off the field and we were down to ten men. Slot had clearly told the team to kick the ball out to allow the substitution, but apparently Alisson and Van Dijk made a ‘ongield decision’ and chose to keep the ball in play and we paid the price. That absolves Slot of direct blame for that goal, but it also exposes a bigger problem: if players are ignoring him in key moments, then his control and authority are lacking. Either way, I don’t like it.

[Exiled_red]

The problem is do you really want to bring young players into this ****show at the moment? Ngumoha is the closest to a youngsters getting any significant game time, and aside from a couple of cup starts he's had 2 or 3 20min run outs and that's it. Nyoni is lucky if he gets 5mins a month. Those are supposed to be senior players according to what we were told at the start of the season. I'd love to k ow who decided they should be considered that, because given the level of involvement I doubt it was Slot. Other youngsters were sent out onloan so I doubt anyone left could be considered close to first team.

It was obvious last season that the manager wouldn't play Endo, Chiesa and Elliott so not really sure why anyone expected that to change this year. Was the plan really that we hoped everyone would stay fit and we managed with a core squad of 17-18 players all season?