Arne Slot

[Exiled_red]

Arne will still be our manager next season, imo. Not signing a defender in this window implies to me we are willing to write this season off, to an extent. If we snatch champs league football - even with the most dour crap you've ever watched - I think he'll be here next season.

Not sure he definately will, surely it comes down to CL qualification, if we make the CL he will probably stay, if we don't then the club have a decision to make, I think that has always been the case

[danperkins]

Not sure he definately will, surely it comes down to CL qualification, if we make the CL he will probably stay, if we don't then the club have a decision to make, I think that has always been the case

[Cerbie]

Not sure he definitely will, surely it comes down to CL qualification, if we make the CL he will probably stay, if we don't then the club have a decision to make, I think that has always been the case

He will definitely be gone next season if we don't qualify for the CL.

If Alonso is interested in the role, I think his track record of giving young talent a chance at Leverkusen will make him a more attractive coach of the young squad we are building for the club and will probably mean Slot is replaced in the summer anyway.

If we get Alonso this summer, Salah is much more likely to go to Saudi & we will recoup some of his salary for the year he has left on his contract

[Charly]

I know I keep saying it. I dont think he has the right tactics for the Premier League without a proper DM protecting the backline.

Without it we are going to struggle. He still has that tactical option between now and the summer. But he keep choosing not to, and we keep shipping goals against crap.

If we fail to get in the CL he has to go imho. No question.

That said, I do feel he has been stiched up a bit with the CB situation. Although he has played a midfielder there only a couple of times, so he has still had a solid pairing there for most of tbe season. Its his tactics that have screwed us.

[Doc_Piptorious]

He will definitely be gone next season if we don't qualify for the CL.

If Alonso is interested in the role, I think his track record of giving young talent a chance at Leverkusen will make him a more attractive coach of the young squad we are building for the club and will probably mean Slot is replaced in the summer anyway.

If we get Alonso this summer, Salah is much more likely to go to Saudi & we will recoup some of his salary for the year he has left on his contract

You should check out the average age at Leverkusen for Alonso's almost three seasons there versus the average age at Feyenoord for Slot's three years there.

Slot's squads (especially once he started bringing players in) and starting XI's were full of players in the 19 to 23 age bracket with hardly any players in their late 20's.


Think it is all well and good us supporters wanting to see more young players given a shot, but it is far easier to do that at clubs like Feyenoord or Leverkusen or even at teams that tend to sit in the mid table slots traditionally in the Premier League.

To give young players regular time at teams like Liverpool, those players really need to be amazing and almost at a generational level. Without them being at that sort of level, we would struggle to aim for the sort of league and cup targets the club sets.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I know I keep saying it. I dont think he has the right tactics for the Premier League without a proper DM protecting the backline.

Without it we are going to struggle. He still has that tactical option between now and the summer. But he keep choosing not to, and we keep shipping goals against crap.

If we fail to get in the CL he has to go imho. No question.

That said, I do feel he has been stiched up a bit with the CB situation. Although he has played a midfielder there only a couple of times, so he has still had a solid pairing there for most of tbe season. Its his tactics that have screwed us.

Do not even think a pure DM is what we need, think what we are missing is a quality deep lying ball progressor that has good defensive qualities rather than that out and out DM type.

We have a good ball carrier in Gravenberch, but we do not really have a good ball progressor from deep amongst our current midfield opton and certainly not one that can set tempo as well.

[Cerbie]

You should check out the average age at Leverkusen for Alonso's almost three seasons there versus the average age at Feyenoord for Slot's three years there.

Slot's squads (especially once he started bringing players in) and starting XI's were full of players in the 19 to 23 age bracket with hardly any players in their late 20's.


Think it is all well and good us supporters wanting to see more young players given a shot, but it is far easier to do that at clubs like Feyenoord or Leverkusen or even at teams that tend to sit in the mid table slots traditionally in the Premier League.

To give young players regular time at teams like Liverpool, those players really need to be amazing and almost at a generational level. Without them being at that sort of level, we would struggle to aim for the sort of league and cup targets the club sets.

It's more about Alonso's willingness to use the young talent in the squad. Slot seems to have a problem with playing the likes of Rio, Ramsay, Trey, etc., even when the first 11 is threadbare or just not working. Look at how Alonso brought on Wirtz and Frimpong and the value that created for the club as well as helping them win the title. If the kids never get a game their value will stagnate.

[Doc_Piptorious]

It's more about Alonso's willingness to use the young talent in the squad. Slot seems to have a problem with playing the likes of Rio, Ramsay, Trey, etc., even when the first 11 is threadbare or just not working. Look at how Alonso brought on Wirtz and Frimpong and the value that created for the club as well as helping them win the title. If the kids never get a game their value will stagnate.

Not fair comparisons though. Wirtz was in the Leverkusen team before Alonso got there and before he had turned 18 was fast becoming a first team regular.

Frimpong is another guy who was already in the Leverkusen first team before Alonso got there and who was already highly rated since his time at Celtic.


The three young guys of ours that you named are nowhere close to being as developed or ready. Hell, Ramsay is 22, same age as Wirtz so if he was such a prospect why was Klopp loaning him out ijnstead of giving him games?


Rio does look good but then again he does not look Wirtz at the same age good so might well be that Slot is protecting him and other young players that he does not think are ready or maybe some of our young players he does not think are good enough full stop especially for a team that was in serious turmoil just a few months back and that is still in the green shoots stage of improving.


To the point about Frimpong and Wirtz developing further under Alonso, yes they did, but then we could look closer to home and see how Gravenberch did the same under Slot.


Slot strikes me as a very pragmatic manager/coach and one that sees ability over age. At his last club it was a case his squads were constantly made up of young players with hardly any over 26 at the time, so that looks like if he thinks players are good enough then they are old enough.

With us he got an older squad and much higher expectations, so my guess is he, especially when things turned sour this season, looked to use a mix of proven big names plus those excelling in training/looked like working under him (ie like Gravenberch).

Then we have the summer just gone and the January window, plenty of young players coming in.

Think we might all love the idea of another Fowler, Gerrard or TAA coming up through the ranks and then becoming top class mainstays, but those guys are unicorns much like how Wirtz was at the same age, capable of going into the first team and being able to match senior players.

May well be that if this season had gone a lot better that some of the young players on the fringes of the first team might have been dropped into settled and performing starting XIs more often, but Slot's reluctance to use them more makes a lot of sense to me if one views Slot as being the pragmatic type.

[Yozza]

[ame="https://youtu.be/TcyocnsMlcg?"]'The job is never done' | The Reds Roundtable | Slot, Hughes & Hogan - YouTube[/ame]

[Exiled_red]

You should check out the average age at Leverkusen for Alonso's almost three seasons there versus the average age at Feyenoord for Slot's three years there.

Slot's squads (especially once he started bringing players in) and starting XI's were full of players in the 19 to 23 age bracket with hardly any players in their late 20's.


Think it is all well and good us supporters wanting to see more young players given a shot, but it is far easier to do that at clubs like Feyenoord or Leverkusen or even at teams that tend to sit in the mid table slots traditionally in the Premier League.

To give young players regular time at teams like Liverpool, those players really need to be amazing and almost at a generational level. Without them being at that sort of level, we would struggle to aim for the sort of league and cup targets the club sets.

The squad we are building is fairly young Leoni and Jacques are 19 and 20, Kerkez, Bradley and Wirtz are 22, Gravenberch and Ekitike, Szoboszlai 24, Jones and Frimpong 25, Even Gakpo, Konate and Isak are only 26.

It's VVD, Salah, Alisson that add to the average age significantly

[peterbread]

In terms of young players the club seems to be taking a cautious approach because of the injuries a lot of previous young players have had.

Slot mentioned Rio gets a day or two off every week so he isn’t overtrained. He specifically mentioned Danns, who he says would definitely be playing now if it wasn’t for his injuries, as being overtrained which is why he’s had so many injury issues. You could add many other young players to the list like Bajcetic and Kaide Gordon.

The club looks to be changing the approach to see if they can keep them fit and available for the long term. I don’t mind that at all. I’d like to see Rio more but this could be the difference between him and plenty of other young attacking players who burst on to the scene then struggle later on with injuries.

[Doc_Piptorious]

The squad we are building is fairly young Leoni and Jacques are 19 and 20, Kerkez, Bradley and Wirtz are 22, Gravenberch and Ekitike, Szoboszlai 24, Jones and Frimpong 25, Even Gakpo, Konate and Isak are only 26.

It's VVD, Salah, Alisson that add to the average age significantly

To be fair I did mention the fact we were bringing in young players in my second post, but that is one of the points I was making as in the young players we are bringing are ones that are either ready to go right into the first team to compete for a place or are deemed very close to that level.

Think that is the level a young player has to be at, be it one brought in from elsewhere or that comes through the ranks, to be of the standard needed for first team game time at a club like Liverpool.

Think being good gets you game time further down the table or in a weaker league, but being potentially exceptional is the level required to jump right in to our first team without having a good number of games played elsewhere.

Think signings like Leoni and Jacquet are examples of taking punts on low game number players who look like they might be good enough to skip needing a few seasons elsewhere to get to the level we hope for from them.

To a lesser degree buys like Ekitike and Kerkez were punts albeit ones that had moves to other clubs when they looked "good" and then we went after when they looked more likely to go to a higher level.

[Yozza]

'Something I dislike' – Slot suggests Liverpool fans are right to have one particular grievance

Arne Slot has said that he empathises with Liverpool fans who’ve been disenchanted with the performances of his team this season.

Having romped to the Premier League title at the first attempt, the 47-year-old has found the going much tougher this time around. The Reds are currently languishing in sixth place and face a battle to simply qualify for the Champions League, with the Dutchman coming under increasing external scrutiny.

Much has also been made of how LFC have played as well as the litany of poor results, with John Aldridge remarking last month that the team had ‘lost [its] DNA’ and was showing ‘no real drive [or] desire].

Slot appeared on the latest episode of The Reds Roundtable, and he confessed that even he has found it hard to watch some of Liverpool’s more sterile performances this season.

The head coach said: “As a manager, you can win the league, you can win the Champions League, you can win an FA Cup or a League Cup, but the biggest thing you can win is that you can play the nicest football to watch.

“Although at this moment of time, fans might argue this a little bit, it is absolutely something I am aiming for. I always want to have the ball, I always want to be intense, I want the fans to like what they see.

“That is something I dislike the most – I would almost say even more than our results, even more than the league table – that not all of our fans are every single moment of the game seeing us as a joy to watch. The hardest thing is I even understand, because I agree with them.

“Trophies are one thing, but being a team or a club or a manager that stands for something, that stands for good football, is I think in the long-term even worth more.”

[Yozza]

Liverpool chief Richard Hughes breaks silence on Arne Slot position and makes transfer vow

Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes has spoken candidly about his relationship with manager Arne Slot - and is 'convinced' that their big-money signings will pay off. Hughes, 46, arrived at Anfield alongside Slot in the summer of 2024, and although their first season together was quiet on the transfer front, Liverpool made a big splash this term.

The Reds spent a record-breaking £449million on new signings while recouping half of that amount through the departure of a number of regulars. But Liverpool find themselves sixth in the Premier League table and Slot has faced fierce scrutiny amid their ailing title defence.

Opening up on his relationship with the Dutchman, former Bournemouth chief Hughes explained: "Fundamentally, there's the understanding for both parties and everyone at wide, that everything involving matchday, team selection, tactics, that's always the manager or head coach. That's their domain. It's very important not to step into that."

Hughes went on to say: "Of course we talk about football and performances but I always let Arne lead that. Naturally in a conversation I will come up with an opinion and not just react to Arne's, but always waiting for the right time to share these things is critical."

Hughes was speaking on the latest episode of The Reds Roundtable which was released the day after the January transfer window closed. He was joined by both Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan and Slot, who said: "We have spoken almost on a daily basis since we started, you get to know each other even better.

"What I really like about working for a sporting director is that whenever I need him, he is there for me. But you don't constantly feel that all the decisions you are making, he is judging them. Maybe he does but then he finds a really good way of hiding it!

"You want to have the backup when needed and advice, but you don't want two eyes on top of you constantly on every decision you make. I think Richard finds that balance really well for me to work in ideal circumstances.

"I've worked with sporting directors who are very keen on the ones they have signed and what makes Richard special is that he's not only focused on the ones he signed, he is there for Liverpool to win and not (just) for his signings to do well.

"That's something you don't always see with sporting directors. It's safe to say he has a low ego."

Hughes also discussed Liverpool's transfer business, insisting that there's always been an understanding within the club that the likes of £116million signing Florian Wirtz would need time before performing well, as he's done in recent weeks. "You have to constantly try to help people off the pitch in their adaptation," Hughes explained.

"It's normal to expect that young people coming from another country would take time to adjust to their surroundings, a different type of football than they may have been used to. So much that isn't necessarily alien but different.

"You want to be there to support them and not suffocate them with it, let them find their own feet. All these players are here for a very good reason, they are top players. Everybody has played their part in getting them to the club and we were all very happy with what we did in the summer, not just me.

"Whether they are good, bad or indifferent in terms of signings, there's no proprietary felt in my position, it's a collective effort that helps these boys translate their form for which they have been brought to the club and be the best version of themselves.

"As long as the players are the right ones in the first place, and we are absolutely convinced every time we bring someone in that they are, then the performances on the pitch will quickly follow. (But) you have to make sure you don't focus just on the new players.

"It's a team sport and just because new people are coming in you can just suddenly leave the players who have been here for a number of years or Federico Chiesa, who has only been here for one year."

[kingfunk]

'The job is never done' | The Reds Roundtable | Slot, Hughes & Hogan - YouTube

I think this is great, as fans, sometimes a little reassurance goes a long way.