2025/26 Season

[Doc_Piptorious]

Specsavers fella

[kingfunk]

I know you make your own luck and all that, and I’ve been very critical of the team this season, but I honestly think they had the rub of the green today. The decision to disallow our goal was baffling and I can’t help wondering if the same call would’ve been made if we were away at Wolves. Both their goals took deflections and our centre-backs should’ve done a lot better. We never really got any momentum going.
Wirtz is a big concern for me. I just don’t think he’s ready at this level yet. He probably needs the season to get used to the Premier League. Konate isn’t good enough in my opinion. They targeted him today, fair play to them, and others will do the same now. He’s so indecisive, by the time he reacts the opposition are already back in shape. Salah looks like he’s on the decline and with half the team still trying to gel, it’s going to take time.
I don’t think sacking the manager is the answer, I also don’t have a huge appetite to go back to Klopp for a couple of years until he’s had enough again and end up in the same spot again. I’d be happy if we brought in a centre-back and a winger in January, accepted that this season’s probably not ours to win, aim for top 4, and a good CL run, then added one or two more in the summer, maybe a DM, and go again next year.

[Pablo]

Winning back to back titles is so hard. We look spent already. The Madrid game tired us out and we weren't able to press at the same level twice in a few days. You need to be almost superhuman in the press to force City into mistakes. We weren't and they were able to break through our press far too easily.

I think bringing in some fresher legs would have been a good idea, and some of the key decisions were shocking, but either way I think City were too much for us. Worrying.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Winning back to back titles is so hard. We look spent already. The Madrid game tired us out and we weren't able to press at the same level twice in a few days. You need to be almost superhuman in the press to force City into mistakes. We weren't and they were able to break through our press far too easily.

I think bringing in some fresher legs would have been a good idea, and some of the key decisions were shocking, but either way I think City were too much for us. Worrying.

Three times in a week if you include the effort put into the Villa game.


Think your second paragraph nails it though. We do have players available that could be rotated in (Gomez for Bradley or Konate being an example) so players not being at 100% being played is on Slot.


Think Gomez, Chiesa, Endo, Jones and whichever of Kerkez or Robertson is not the starter should be getting rotated in every third game and also getting regular 30 minute run outs in the games that they are on the bench.

[Buzzo]

Winning back to back titles is so hard. We look spent already. The Madrid game tired us out and we weren't able to press at the same level twice in a few days. You need to be almost superhuman in the press to force City into mistakes. We weren't and they were able to break through our press far too easily.

I think bringing in some fresher legs would have been a good idea, and some of the key decisions were shocking, but either way I think City were too much for us. Worrying.

Three times in a week if you include the effort put into the Villa game.


Think your second paragraph nails it though. We do have players available that could be rotated in (Gomez for Bradley or Konate being an example) so players not being at 100% being played is on Slot.


Think Gomez, Chiesa, Endo, Jones and whichever of Kerkez or Robertson is not the starter should be getting rotated in every third game and also getting regular 30 minute run outs in the games that they are on the bench.

Yep, Slot getting himself into a position where he only trusts a portion of the squad is an ongoing issue. It affects the morale of the players who begin to understand they are second string. They also have limited minutes to play their way into form. Managing squad morale and minutes is a big task, something that Guardiola and Klopp, are/were masters at. Slot has proved he can manage a first XI but to the detriment of trusting that backup.

[frank the tank]

A load of us were crying out for an unchanged line up after the Madrid game.

We were second best yesterday but if the Virgil header counted as it should have, and we got to half time at one all, then we dont know how the game would have gone. Everyone is an expert after the fact.

I was disappointed enough with the subs to be honest. So to play devils advocate, of Slot did start the likes of Gomez and Jones and it went tits up, then he would have been slated for not starting the same team.

I think arsenal will wobble. And it might have started against Sunderland. I also think that city might storm the ****in league.

Looking at our fixtures though, now is the time to go on a proper run of victories. ****in head down and churn.

Big disappointments so far this season have been:

1. Salah. His form has fallen off a cliff. If his contract was up at the end of this season, then none of us would be calling for a new deal. I don't think he will leave in the Jan window but I can see him going in the summer. I think if Slot is going to keep using him though, we need to change the formation of the team. Because his lack of tracking back from the right is causing us to be really vulnerable against good sides. I'd like to see a 442 with Salah as the most advanced.

2. Isak. What a ****in let down. This thing about his lack of a pre season really does my ****in head in. A record signing and he wasn't fit??? He should have been pounding the gym ffs. Sounds like he was on his couch eating ****in doritos and ready to go on strike for the year. He needs.to ****in snap out of it and start delivering but I feel it's more likely that he will strain his left nut next week for Sweden and be out for a few weeks. The prick. Stevie Wonder can see that we'd have been better off keeping Diaz who has been brilliant so far this year for Bayern but we'd have also been better off keeping Darwin. At least he'd have a ****in go.

[BigChief]

Looking forward, City was the final tough game for us in this run. Now we have 'easier', non-bogey-team, games starting from next Saturday all the way up to the morning of January 8th when we meet Arsenal. Really we should be winning every single one of them, maybe barring Inter away (which won't matter by then anyway, hopefully).

Our general play/structure has gotten better despite the doom and gloom. Isak can start to be reintroduced again. Only a month and a half before the sorely awaited Afcon (good luck Egypt, get to the final!!!). The likes of Conor, Macca, Robbo and even Wirtz are playing better compared to earlier.

The PL chase is not over yet.

[Slinky Skills]

A load of us were crying out for an unchanged line up after the Madrid game.

We were second best yesterday but if the Virgil header counted as it should have, and we got to half time at one all, then we dont know how the game would have gone. Everyone is an expert after the fact.

I was disappointed enough with the subs to be honest. So to play devils advocate, of Slot did start the likes of Gomez and Jones and it went tits up, then he would have been slated for not starting the same team.

I think arsenal will wobble. And it might have started against Sunderland. I also think that city might storm the ****in league.

Looking at our fixtures though, now is the time to go on a proper run of victories. ****in head down and churn.

Big disappointments so far this season have been:

1. Salah. His form has fallen off a cliff. If his contract was up at the end of this season, then none of us would be calling for a new deal. I don't think he will leave in the Jan window but I can see him going in the summer. I think if Slot is going to keep using him though, we need to change the formation of the team. Because his lack of tracking back from the right is causing us to be really vulnerable against good sides. I'd like to see a 442 with Salah as the most advanced.

2. Isak. What a ****in let down. This thing about his lack of a pre season really does my ****in head in. A record signing and he wasn't fit??? He should have been pounding the gym ffs. Sounds like he was on his couch eating ****in doritos and ready to go on strike for the year. He needs.to ****in snap out of it and start delivering but I feel it's more likely that he will strain his left nut next week for Sweden and be out for a few weeks. The prick. Stevie Wonder can see that we'd have been better off keeping Diaz who has been brilliant so far this year for Bayern but we'd have also been better off keeping Darwin. At least he'd have a ****in go.

[Cerbie]

The Diaz goal at the weekend was superb. It showed his determination and willingness to have a go. In an LFC team, I suspect he would try to cross that to Salah rather than take the chance himself. Have we got a buy-back clause??

I hope AFCON gives the rest of the team the space to work out how we play in a post-Salah world.

[frank the tank]

Yip that was unreal. Brilliant fight by Diaz

We spent a ****in fortune in the summer - and to be fair took in a lot of cash too. But we'd have been much better off this season so far if we didn't buy any player or sell any player. Really disappointing

[Cerbie]

Yip that was unreal. Brilliant fight by Diaz

We spent a ****in fortune in the summer - and to be fair took in a lot of cash too. But we'd have been much better off this season so far if we didn't buy any player or sell any player. Really disappointing

100% this. We should be flying, and we have actually taken a huge step backwards in performance, fluidity, and coherence.

[Doc_Piptorious]

100% this. We should be flying, and we have actually taken a huge step backwards in performance, fluidity, and coherence.

The longer this stop start stop type performances go on the more and more I am of the impression that all the tactics etc in the world cannot fix us this season, despite me being one that thought we were going about things wrong tactically (still do to a degree as think we are not fitting the sytem to the players) and the more I think we have a group of players of whom a large number are broken/damaged emotionally and mentally after the death of their friend.

Throw in a number of new players who have walked into the emotional turmoil, not to mention half those new players out with injuries, and it may well be setting the scene for the transitional season many expected last season to be.


They have to see their friend every day at training and in the ground with pictures of him about the place, they see a reminder of his death and how he is not coming back with the meorial at Anfield, they hear his name twenty minutes into every game.

And imo no doubt they are feeling the pressure to excel for him and then feeling the weight of failing to do so.

We had a disrupted pre season that when it began was full of young men who were processing the loss of a friend, the season began with pundits saying that the death of Jota should mean the season is a write off for Liverpool because of the emotional trauma (the same pundits that now have forgotten what they said and are instead tearing strips off the same players) and that a slump should be expected.

We may have players that are training fine but the moment they get near a pitch the pressure and reminders become too much at times. It's a team sport and it does not take many players being 5% off or 10% off to drag the entire teams level down dramatically


Could we be doing things better as a club/team? Yes I think it is fair to say we could. Building a set up around our best players rather than trying to fit players into a rigid set up might be a start but am now starting to strongly believe that last (and understandable) damage was done when Jota and his brother were in that horrible accident and their lives were lost.


It's not a "man up" situation, it's not a sorting the mentality monsters from the mental midgets moment, it might well just be a case of being human and hitting collective limits on a regular basis.

[Sus]

From The Guardian

After hundreds of millions spent on players, what was Liverpool’s plan?
The defending Premier League champions spent big over the summer, but it’s hard to see how the new players fit

Jonathan Wilson
Mon 10 Nov 2025 10.45 EST

What was it supposed to look like? Amid all the talk around Liverpool and their disappointing form at the start of this season, that is perhaps the hardest question of all to answer. What were they trying to do? If it had worked, how would this team have played?

The champions spent £424m (about $550m) on new signings in the summer, but if all had gone well, they would have spent an additional £40m ($53m) to land Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guéhi. The England international would, at the very least, have given an extra option at the back (the injury to Giovanni Leoni has diminished their defensive options further), allowing Arne Slot to rest Ibrahima Konaté, whose poor form continued in the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday. An early City penalty was a direct result of Konaté getting in Conor Bradley’s way as Jérémy Doku cut in from the left.

But Konaté’s partnership with Virgil van Dijk is proven. In past seasons, it has been far better than this. While neither central defender is playing well, Liverpool’s baffling openness this season has been less about individual form than structure – and that’s despite, in recent weeks, returning to last season’s midfield.

Against Aston Villa last weekend, Slot selected an XI consisting of 10 players who were at the club last season, plus Hugo Ekitike. On Tuesday, against Real Madrid, there was one further change with Florian Wirtz replacing Cody Gakpo. Liverpool won both of those games, but neither Villa nor Madrid tested their obvious vulnerability to direct balls played behind the full-backs. Going back to basics, trying to make the transition to something new and more incremental, may not quite have been an admission of hundreds of millions wasted in the summer, but it probably was an acknowledgment that there had been an attempt to change too much too quickly.

Soccer teams are delicate organisms. Even on a purely tactical level, without considering the infinite complexities of psychology, changing one element of a lineup has an impact not merely on the other 10 elements, but on the coalitions between them. Take out Trent Alexander-Arnold, for instance, and Liverpool no longer have a player at right-back who naturally inverts to become an auxiliary holding midfielder alongside Ryan Gravenberch, shielding the centre of defense while liberating central midfielders Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, while also being capable both of sweeping long passes to switch play and accurate quick balls forward to release Mohamed Salah.

Slot had become convinced by the end of last season that opponents had worked Liverpool out, to an extent a consequence of the club’s limited transfer activity last summer. There was, anyway, always going to be a moment when this became discernibly his side rather than Jürgen Klopp’s. To that extent, significant change was inevitable and necessary. But what was the intention? If all had gone well, how should this side have looked?

Liverpool signed two centre-forwards for a combined fee of £210m ($276m). Perhaps the plan was always to play only one of Alexander Isak and Ekitiké, to keep them fresh, to have one always ready to come off the bench, much as West Brom once did with Romelu Lukaku and Shane Long. But given their cost, that’s an extraordinarily privileged position to be in, even if either could theoretically operate wide in extremis and so provide additional squad depth.

But where was Wirtz, who cost £100m ($131m) plus add-ons, supposed to fit? He was seemingly promised he would play centrally, which helped persuade him to move from Bayer Leverkusen to Anfield rather than to Bayern. At the start of the season, Slot’s preference appeared to be for Wirtz as a central creator in a 4-2-3-1. But that, it turned out, left Liverpool hopelessly open at the back – something apparent even as they won their first five games of the season.

Wirtz may adapt but, for now, he is struggling with the physicality of the Premier League. It’s very hard to see how he and Salah, for whose lack of natural defensive capacity Liverpool have always had to compensate, can play in the same side without risking the midfield being overwhelmed – at least not in the Premier League; Madrid simply did not provide the same physical challenge.

In fact, it may be that no more than two of Isak, Ekitiké, Wirtz, and Salah can play together. Even if the summer were part of the transition to a post-Salah future, it’s very hard to understand what the plan was, unless Liverpool always had in mind some sort of 4-3-1-2, with Wirtz to play behind Alexander Isak and Ekitiké, with width provided from full-back, which would at least help to explain why they signed Milos Kerkez and Frimpong. In a world of direct play and long throws, perhaps a front two is the next part of English soccer’s 1980s revival.

But for now, Liverpool stand as a cautionary tale of how you can take a very good team, throw money at it, and make everything much worse.

[frank the tank]

I think there may be an aspect of that grief impacting on a day to day basis particularly in the training ground. But this doesn't account for the silly individual errors. I don't think anyway. But having said that, at the very top level, that weight and sadness must be playing a part.

Also, it is a good point too that the integration of the new players will have been impacted by the overall atmosphere. No doubt.

I think the idea might have been to leave Mo go last season but his stats and performances last year just brought on this big momentum to give him a new deal. Maybe?? If the second half of this season becomes a preparation for next year, then I can see Salah changed and a different formation tried.

I would love to see us go with a narrow 442 - with Wirtz and Szoboslai playing left and right......with the width coming from the full backs. I couldn't understand how we started playing kerkez as an inverted full back a few weeks ago. Hopefully Isak pulls the finger out and starts performing because if he starts rattling in the goals, then all of a sudden we don't have to crib about Salah so much.

Looking at our fixtures though, as someone else here said today, we should be starting to notch some wins on the board now. Need to go on a good run and I think we can. It is a pity that we play the likes of forest and West Ham after they both went through their bat**** defending phase but we should still be looking to win most of our next run of games. We need to build that siege mentality starting when we come back from international break. We play arsenal at the start of Jan - I think we have 9 league games between now and then and we should be looking to ****in blitz them all. I believe that we will be closer to arsenal by the time we play them. I also think that man city will have overtaken them by then though!!!

This slump will make success at the end of the season all the sweeter.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I think there may be an aspect of that grief impacting on a day to day basis particularly in the training ground. But this doesn't account for the silly individual errors. I don't think anyway. But having said that, at the very top level, that weight and sadness must be playing a part.

Also, it is a good point too that the integration of the new players will have been impacted by the overall atmosphere. No doubt.

I think the idea might have been to leave Mo go last season but his stats and performances last year just brought on this big momentum to give him a new deal. Maybe?? If the second half of this season becomes a preparation for next year, then I can see Salah changed and a different formation tried.

I would love to see us go with a narrow 442 - with Wirtz and Szoboslai playing left and right......with the width coming from the full backs. I couldn't understand how we started playing kerkez as an inverted full back a few weeks ago. Hopefully Isak pulls the finger out and starts performing because if he starts rattling in the goals, then all of a sudden we don't have to crib about Salah so much.

Looking at our fixtures though, as someone else here said today, we should be starting to notch some wins on the board now. Need to go on a good run and I think we can. It is a pity that we play the likes of forest and West Ham after they both went through their bat**** defending phase but we should still be looking to win most of our next run of games. We need to build that siege mentality starting when we come back from international break. We play arsenal at the start of Jan - I think we have 9 league games between now and then and we should be looking to ****in blitz them all. I believe that we will be closer to arsenal by the time we play them. I also think that man city will have overtaken them by then though!!!

This slump will make success at the end of the season all the sweeter.

Hell yeah, back on the bring 'em f*cking on train. Let me grab my sword of positivity and call in the lads.