Arne Slot ‘bullet being loaded into FSG manager gun’ after ‘turgid’ Liverpool defeat | OneFootball

Arne Slot is done as Liverpool manager. That much is clear. It’s just a case of when the gun will be fired.

We have tried to keep the Arsenal mails to a minimum. Watch some football and then e-mail theeditor@football365.com.

Is there a doctor in the house?

Don’t worry Liverpool fans.

Dr Tottenham up next in the league. That’ll cure what ails ya. Aidan Boyce (wondering what sins I committed in a past life to be a Spurs fan in this one)

Had enough of Arne Slot at Liverpool

Honestly, any credit he built from winning the league last season has gone.]

Was it a case of that team was so well drilled under Klopp that they just kicked on and did what they were trained to do and won the league?

This season, with the investment, and Slot decimating our academy and selling them on was a test of his coaching ability.

It’s fair to say he’s failed. He was recruited on his ability to coach, to train and bring through youth.

He’s had £450m of investment and he claims he wants to play like PSG.

He’s dissed players throughout the season in his press conferences, and even said he’s only had £250m of signings available to him because Isak hasn’t been available, and Frimpong and Leoni have been injured, and we spent £35m on Marmadashvili who hardly ever plays. Yes, he really did say that!

He’s made us worse. Playing across the back, slow build up, and struggling to press, we can all see it!

I’ve given him as much leeway as I can give throughout the season, and accepted his excuses with injuries, etc, but no more. I really did want him to succeed and push on!

We’ve still got a team who should be performing much better than this, despite the injuries.

Your time is up Arne!

Thanks for number 20, but you’ve shown us your limitations, and it’s time to go, as much as I hate admitting it!

We really can’t make the same mistake that United made with Ten Hag and carry on, but I think the fact that there is no mention of extending his contract shows that maybe, he doesn’t have the backing everyone thinks he has.

At least you’ll have a League Title with Liverpool on your CV.

Go forth with our gratitude. The Forever, but disgruntled, Red!

…450 million and no chance to defend title. Unforgivable. Slot out! DJ

…Back at the end of Jan-20 a late Bobby Firmino goal helped snatch 3 points for Liverpool away to Wolves in a 2-1 win and for me, that was the moment I truly fully believed we would win the title that year.

Something similar happened for me last night from a personal belief perspective, but I am afraid to say Arne that it was the bullet being loaded into FSG manager gun – I am certain it’s over now … it’s now just a matter of when, not if and for me there is a strengthening argument for doing this sooner rather than later.

The first 75 minutes of last night’s game was just turgid, offering extremely little to get enthused about as a Liverpool fan.

An honest congratulations to Wolves for bagging the points – you guys deserved it. It’s clearly been a challenging season for you, so I very much recognise having highlights like the last week has brought you are so much more valued in that context.

But the crescendo to last night’s game made me realise something worrying – just how much of a f*** I couldn’t give about us not getting 3 points and how disconnected I felt from this team in terms of style and players. When considering I am at the end of my 5th decade supporting the club, that worried me. I can only think of the Souness reign in the early 90’s as when I held similar disconnected feelings (and we had the god that was / is John Barnes in that setup – the spoonful of sugar that helped that crappy medicine go down).

What’s led me to this feeling?

Pace / Style of play – gone are the days of the gegenpressing and sharp attacks that made Klopp’s Liverpool such an energetic, transfixing force of nature to watch. These days we have to sit through slower, less incisive horse-shoe shaped build up / ‘attack’. Liverpool have always felt like a more dangerous proposition when they had an energetic swarm mentality towards attack. It’s certainly not that nowadays, and without a locksmith like Wirtz to help breakdown well organised low blocks more centrally we appear devoid of natural ideas of how to score (the wingers certainly aren’t cutting it this year).

Players – there’s been a clear changing of the guard in terms of squad content. Nothing stays the same for ever, clearly, but within that there appears to have been departures of my favourite players.

In terms of the transition from Klopp’s title winning side to where we are today there are a few standouts. Top of the list was Bobby Firmino – the epitome of style and attitude in terms of what we did on the pitch … love(d) that man. Not far behind him was Trent – the best right foot in the prem at the time of his departure. Did things on the pitch with his range of passing that simply took my breath away (a locksmith at RB). Then there was Gini – so under-rated I thought – one of the best that I’ve seen at receiving the ball when being closely marked and retaining possession.

Honourable mentions to the few favoured ones that spanned the bridge between the 2 squads – Alisson, Robbo and Joe Gomez (of which only Alisson regularly plays).

Out of the current crop it won’t surprise many that Wirtz and Ekitike are the ones working their way to the top of the preferred list.

People may be making statements about how far we are away in terms of squad from getting back towards the top of the tree (my lord, how naff does that feel to write after spending close to half a billion recently !). I don’t think that squad gap question can be answered effectively until you are consistently playing in a style that you want to carry forward for a few seasons and can more readily evaluate who does well within that and who doesn’t. The sooner you are on the right ‘style of play’ path the easier it feels to devise an effective transfer strategy (something Mr Edwards did so brilliantly in the earlier days of Klopp … because the ethos was clear for all to see and we know it was set to stay in place for a while).

Getting onto the right long term path involves moving away from Slot, so I would encourage that decision to be taken sooner rather than later. Sparky, LFC

(.. our midfield isn’t right though … can’t remember the last prem game where we dominated that area of the park .. lacks steel and cohesion … Valverde please)

Liverpool not blameless on Harvey Elliott

Agree with the sentiments, including those regarding Aston Villa, a non threatening, likeable football club and team, and the situation with Harvey Elliott is borderline unconscionable.

You forgot to add Liverpool’s role in this, they clearly know that Villa are not going to trigger the ‘compulsory buy’ clause by picking him, so, he’s going back to Anfield.

But they are happy to let one of their own ‘rot’ on the sidelines to the point where he will return in a far worse state than he left… and have significantly less value.

Surely, common sense for all would be to find a compromise and let the lad play! Steve, Melbourne

Wolves are back, baby

It’s been a harsh year, i haven’t gone to a game this season, I was praying for August. Haven’t bothered with the mailbox, but thanks to Rob Ed I am starting to believe again, great job by the players and all involved and never stop believing.

Think I will now try get a match in before the end of season now. Irishwolf Dublin

Any opportunity to big up Man Utd

Does anyone else remember United getting mocked for missing out on Gakpo and Mathys Tel? I’d suggest that was more evidence that maybe some of our recently recruitment decisions were just fine after all. Badwolf

Adios football, unless Carrick…

As mentioned, I find football boring as f*** these days and it seems that’s really not a unique opinion at all, it’s gone mainstream. Fans are complaining (minus Arsenal obviously), pundits are complaining, ex-pros are complaining and behind the scenes I’d wager sponsors are complaining (they’d love me to place a wager wouldn’t they the cunts).

The Arsenal-Chelsea stink fest seems to have been a breaking point for most though. So let’s go one last final painful time.

– The mailbox had the title ‘Why are Arsenal getting all the hate for set-piece nonsense?’. Responding only to the titular question and not the content as a non-Arsenal fan and previous fan of football, here’s my few reasons.

Tl;dr – heavy is the head that (might) wear the crown, not entertaining, systemic cheating that isn’t even funny cheating. Wouldn’t care if you were 17th (as the style deserves) but you are 1st. NBA use case/comparison. Kids will hate you. Let’s change the rules. Carrick is king.

So just in my opinion;

1. Football is meant to be entertaining and this is the opposite of entertaining. All aspects of the game are so f***ing boring and contrived already.

2. Like it or not, and whether consciously aware or not, The team in first place kind of represents the whole league externally and its general direction of football internally and if this ‘style’ wins, it just doesn’t inspire anything positive.

3. The top team should exhibit some aspirational approach to football that you hope your team could one day copy. This is not that. They should have players that you want on your team. These are not those players.

4. This horrible, horrible, horrible football firmly places Arse as the bad guy and no one wants the bad guy to win really do they? This isn’t a cool bad guy either. It’s a loser. Incel type.

5. I want to watch football, not time-wasting, cheating bitches. Hyper-Professionalised football was already boring enough without this being the apparent pinnacle.

6. Obviously cheating isn’t new but I used to love a ‘good’ dive – it was relatively rare, almost always comical and without VAR for the officials to lean on, there was an element of the cartoon villain when someone got away with an obvious one. And all players were shit at it, especially the best players (there’s an article in there starring Stevie Starfish F365).

Now this cheating is systemic, endless, choreographed, directed, all players, coaches and manager involved in this crescendo of theatre that is the core part of the primary winning tactic.

7. Of the big teams, Arsenal would have always been my second choice to win after United. Wenger, Fabregas, Diaby (what could have been), so many silky smooth players, the classics that won loads, etc…… now you are firm last. I hate this version.

8. Unless something changes, more and more will copy.

9. This is the final-ish knife in football for me (too much riding on Carrick, poor guy) so extra painful. Turd on top of turd mountain. Stuck right in the sole of the shoe.

However, given how horrible this is, I doubt we can continue without a rule change – now on to mail no.2.

NBA is far from perfect (currently defence is barely allowed and the regular season is largely meaningless, which surely isn’t sustainable), but the stakeholders do at least all admit it is an entertainment product that they need to sell and as such, continually review and change the rules in an effort to keep it entertaining (sometimes failing but they try).

They outlaw instances of teams or players gaming the rules to get an advantage that damages the product overall. Countless examples but here are 2 that maybe a non-NBA fan might at least have heard of and haters of Arsenal may relate to.

1. Hack-a-Shaq: – Big Ol’ Shaq was sooooo dominant but so shit at free throws (only 1pt per shot) that teams realised it made more sense to fill their rosters with the most unskillful big men possible who could get remotely close to his strength and then just foul him immediately and send him to the line for free-throws. Small skillful players didn’t play anymore, they just fouled him as far from the basket as possible.

The result was almost no basketball played and people just watching a 7’1 350lb behemoth stink it up at the free-throw line. So they changed the rules and made this a fairly pointless tactic to use.

2. The Harden rule: Excellent player but figured out a way to con the refs ‘to the letter of the law’ to get himself sent to the free-throw line relentlessly (he was good at them too). Essentially by cleverly initiating contact that wasn’t there. Genius but boring as f***.

The result, fans got bored of watching Harden lock arms and flail himself about and then shoot free throws for 3 hours. So they changed the rules.

Obvious parallels to be seen in those two but come on, who wants to watch this shit?

Would children watch this and be inspired enough to get into football? Would a kid grow up now and say ‘man i wish I could turn back and play it safely to my full-back like Saka, he’s the best at that Dad!’ Or ‘Do you think I’ll be able to win a corner like that one day?!’?

Close your eyes and try to picture this future hellscape..

2035: the lunchtime bell has rung and the kids are running out to the playground. ‘I’m Gabriel’, shouts one kid, ‘No, you were Gabriel yesterday, I’m Gabriel’, shouts another. ‘Fine, I’ll be Saliba’. Then, with teams decided, each child finds his opposing number and they just start to hug incessantly as the ball is whipped in (in this twisted fantasy, football has devolved to just consist of corners and throw-ins). In beautiful synchronicity while the ball hangs in the air, the children all fall to the floor holding their faces while they scream at the dinner lady for a penalty whilst simultaneously trying to score with one of the permitted body parts…..

No one kicks the ball except the reluctant corner taker, wishing it was his turn to be involved in the grappling.

That’s where heroes are made.

Goals only count if they come off the shin, Arse or shoulder.

The game is over at 1-0. …

It’s time to finally do a reverse-Man City coping mechanism and whoever comes 2nd this season actually wins the title.

City fans, enjoy your first real title! Oh wait, your trophies don’t count… so I guess Carricks at the wheel and 21 is coming!

I jest…

So what can they do? Simple as f***, just change/enforce the rules to prioritise entertainment and minimise cheating.

F*** you guys you suck. Booooooo! Hisssssssss! Moses (Someone in here once said loosely, ‘who remembers a wrong offside decision that cost their team?’ – United fans > Drogba…. Never Forget)

Is it time for drastic changes to football?

Ok, so football is getting more boring and clearly it’s Arsenals fault. I don’t want to dispute either of those even if tue second one is just very clearly clickbait that the gooners will fall for but there’s a few other things too…

Money is a big one. As more money rolls in clubs are looking for any edge to bend the rules to their advantage. New rules brought in to stop something can usually be exploited for something else.

We also rightly bemoan a lack of flair players. Unfortunately now the way the game has gone fitness is way more important than skill. Gone are the days Matt Le Tissier and co could do fuck all for 88 mins of a game but still score 2 worldies and end up on the winning side. In this day, Matt wouldn’t even get on the bench for any club. Every player needs to defend and support the attack so if you can’t or won’t run 12 kms in 90 mins forget about it.

What that level of fitness also means is that both ends of the pitch are almost always congested and as such suffocating the game.

And did the change from 3 subs to 5 also contribute? Now you can rotate half your outfield players for fresh legs to continue to congest the pitch. Screw that, we want a frantic last 10 mins of knackered players going end to end to try and score a game changing goal.

Rules changes won’t help much unless they are drastic and we can’t do that to the beautiful game? Can we?

How about we limit the number of players allowed in each half. Ensure at least 3 outfield players are in each half at all times. Now that’s 6 less players in the box at corners and 3 less players teams can use for their low block bullshit. Not only that, it takes away the need for attackers to have to also be defenders and therefore flair might be more useful than fitness again.

Or we just reduce each team to 9 a side creating much more space. Unfortunately that doesn’t do anything for fitness being such a premium unless we have rolling subs too.

These are way too drastic to ever be implemented. Instead we get the pointless moving of the offside line that will likely do nothing.

Any other suggestions? Jon, Cape Town (while my suggestions may seem drastic, look at cricket, T20 was a drastic change and now thats the most popular format by far – not impossible to see something similar hapenning in footy one day)

But why has set-piece wave happened?

Yes, it’s another e-mail about set-pieces, hurrah! But I thought rather than pointing out the bleeding obvious, that set-pieces goals are on the up and up, I thought I would try to examine why this trend has occurred. I believe there are multiple reasons for this.

Coaching/Analysts – the level of managers and coaches and analysts in the league has never been better. They are able to set out a game plan for pretty much any team and nullify them. Even in-game changes are quickly identified and stopped by analysts sat up in the stands.

Recruitment/Players – whilst the level of the elite players may not be quite what it was in years gone by, your average PL player is now far better than they were 5-10 years ago. They are better physically, tactically and technically. Mid table fodder can’t be swatted aside so easily in 2026. Every (most) team has 1 or 2 quality players that can hurt you on the break.

Physiology – players are faster, bigger, stronger than ever before. They can get around the pitch and shut down any space that appears in double quick time. As well as smashing into you at any given opportunity, they can bombard you aerially at every set-piece.

5 Subs – I think this is massive, the irony is the bigger clubs wanted 5 subs so they can use their bigger squads but it has actually worked against them. In years gone by it got to the 70th minute and you could see the better team really take control whilst the opposition tired. In the 5 sub era this is no longer the case when you can refresh half your outfield players.

Data – Obviously linked to recruitment and coaching above. But also teams find it much easier now to identify strengths and weaknesses in opposition, develop schemes to combat that. Look in the margins where gains can be made e.g. corners and throw-ins.

POGMOL / VAR – for some unknown reason VAR have decided they will spend 3 to 4 minutes looking for a reason to disallow any open play goal for any minor infringement they can find or a toe nail offside. Where as at corners there are no rules! Have at it boys, as long as no-one dies, anything goes! I also think the “high-bar” BS that they have implemented means that the elite attackers are just kicked out of the game. Full backs are able to smash the wide forwards with impunity, often 5 or 6 times before they eventually get a card in the 80th minute.

Pragmatism/Risk – it’s so important now to stay in the league given the money involved that DoFs / Execs are deciding that rather than go for attacking manager and buying expensive attacking players it’s a lot more prudent to get a very pragmatic manager and stuff your team full of 6ft 6 hard men and get a set-piece coach, in some cases the set-piece coach is now the manager!

There we are, I am sure there are other reasons I have forgotten. So my questions to the mailbox are: why do we think this trend seems to have happened so quickly? Why is it only really happening in the premier league? And other than rule changes, what do we think will be the next tactical wave that will prevent it? AB, Maidenhead

How Ireland can get to a World Cup and do well

The subject of my email might be a bit misleading but in this week of absolute football pandemonium which might get even worse if Arsenal and or Citeh drop points tonight I needed something that might stick out and grab attention.

The sheer overreaction towards set pieces now being a thorn in the side of football is ridiculous.

The fact that Arsenal, Brentford, United and other teams have looked at ways to maximise the potential from set pieces and are being criticised for it as oppose to teams being criticised for their inability to stop something they know is coming goes beyond me.

Arsenal are good at set pieces, they might be rough in the box but if you watch football matches from any league in Europe you will say shirts being pulled and players being grabbed. The AFCON final most people defended Senegal for walking off the field in the last minute for a penalty given against them for a “gentle pull of the shirt” Brahim Diaz was labelled a diver and cheat for going down.

In any other sport, teams rely on set pieces as advantages – rugby the line out, scrum and penalties it’s a sin to lose one of your own, an regardless of how good the team is outside of set pieces they won’t succeed if they can’t do the controllables right – basketball anytime the ball goes out see how much players move to create a scoring chance from a sideline ball.

When Stoke city, any of Sam Allardyces sides and other classic Barclays teams played in the league those teams were heralded for their ability to be dangerous from set pieces.

Free kicks, corners and throw ins are opportunities for teams to retain possession/create an opportunity, nobody celebrates seeing a free kick taker in an advantageous position pass from the half way line back to the keeper or a corner routine go short an end up being recycled back to the half way line.

If Ireland qualify for this World Cup nobody on the Emerald Isle will be complaining if we do so by well practiced set piece routines and strong defensive performances. Even less so if they go on an unlikely run in the World Cup.

You can call the game boring, not the same as it once was but go back 20, 30, 50 years and you will see teams going to war in the box over corners and free kicks it has never not been an element of the game. Dave, Enfield

The last word on Arsenal…for now

A message of support to Arsenal fans – take heart, cheer up, all is well! There’s no need to get so worked up over negative commentary – both imagined and real – about your team’s set piece tactics. Does it really matter what the critics have to say, when your team is top of the league and set to win their first Barclays title since before the iPhone? Of course not!

When the trophy gets handed over in May, it’s going to say “Arsenal 2026/27”; there’s not going to be a little asterisk that says “but only because of corners”. No one will be worrying about “too much wrestling” when you’re out enjoying the parade. So just revel in it, avoid the Internet if that helps, and enjoy how well your team is doing.

And, even if, in the worst-case (and increasingly unlikely) scenario that City somehow nick it in the end, do not despair, because there are still three other trophies you can win, including a very attainable first Champions League title – wouldn’t that be something! – and, to top it off, the near-certainty of a Spurs relegation.

Now doesn’t that all make the sun shine a little brighter?!

Wishing you all the best, Guy in Cape Town

To the Arsenal fans, yes we have got it in for you, but then you’re very much a team crafted in your manager’s image, and 90% plus of opposition fans think that manager is a gratingly insufferable c**t.