Arne Slot ‘out of his depth in a paddling pool’ as Liverpool players ‘lost faith’ | OneFootball

Liverpool got absolutely battered by Manchester City on Sunday and the Mailbox is absolutely unforgiving of Arne Slot.

The new trend is not the best trend

This ‘Bald Dutch Manager’ thing doesn’t seem to be working too well… Adidasmufc (Going Dutch twice is enough for us)

Give Arne Slot credit

Not many managers have figured out how to stop Salah like he has.

Love n Hugs David (Hi everyone) Jones

Miss Trent yet, Liverpool fans?

So happy to see Liverpool get absolutely obliterated on the left flank. Seems like having a world class attacking RB or not is the difference between being a great team and hasbeens. Trent must be laughing his balls off being on top of the league with his team while not having to face Doku on this form. Aman

This Liverpool meltdown is delicious

After your £400m spend over the summer, your clubs crap form is even more delicious than it would otherwise be.

All non Liverpool supporters are having a brilliant time. Will (Carry on booing your former players though, at least you get pleasure from that)

How good was Jeremy Doku?

Doku was unplayable yesterday. I’ve not seen a player that unplayable since Isak, when he refused to play for Newcastle. Simon S, NUFC, Cheshire

…I cannot remember the last time I saw a performance as stunning as Jeremy Doku’s this afternoon. Incredible. Robert Welbourn

Blaming Arne Slot for this Liverpool mess

I’m writing this at half-time and if Liverpool somehow pull off the impossible, I’ll happily eat my words. But after that first 45 minutes, it feels… wildly optimistic.

Football clubs fall apart for three reasons: bad players, bad managers, or bad owners. There’s a fourth — bad luck — but you don’t control that, and it eventually evens out in the end.

Liverpool don’t have bad owners. Quite the opposite: they make smart hires, back data over ego, and rarely panic. They don’t have bad players either — Van Dijk, Salah, Gravenberch — it’s a Premier League Champions-calibre squad.

Which leaves one obvious culprit: the manager.

A manager’s job is simple in theory: pick the right players, impose a clear tactical identity, and get the best out of the squad. Right now, Liverpool are missing on all three.

Start with Wirtz. He’s so lightweight you could slip him into a backpack and breeze past Ryanair’s carry-on check. Meanwhile, Gakpo — seven goal involvements this season — is glued to the bench. Everyone can see Wirtz isn’t up to it. Everyone except Slot.

The players look like they’ve lost faith, and who can blame them? Between the nonsensical lineups and the self-sabotaging substitutions (see: United game), Slot looks out of his depth in a paddling pool and he’s drowning here. Oliver, London

Liverpool awful but Arne Slot still calm, actually

Just wanted to point out that, in several games now, Liverpool have not won due to fundamental and recurring problems with the set-up, and poor individual performances from the players with ridiculous errors.

Yet, at the same time, there’s been ref calls that could have had an impact, with the Palace goal scored from a corner that never was, the talking-point of Mac Allister’s head injury, if-not-dubious-then-at-the-very-least-inconsistently-awarded penalties like Doku’s, or equalisers like VVD’s ruled out.

And there’s been no ‘DISGRACIA’, no GAMESTATE!, PGMOL! POSTCODES! from Slot.

Now I know F365 have joined the pile on with Slot, and his being “salty” about a thing he was happy about. Or that if he answers a specific question with analysis (which is backed up by stats in your own articles, about the increased number of long ball faced), that you can invent pointlessly snidy asides and infer ‘oh is he saying you can’t do that rofl’ so you can paint him out as the bad guy…. but only if you intentionally omit the end of those quotes where he repeatedly said a variant of ‘that’s the situation we face and it’s up to the team to get past that’. That you can get some clickbait about whether Slot is calling Newcastle, big, small, or whatever in a throwaway remark he made about Real Sociedad.

But it’s fair to say that there are other managers in this league who, when given the opportunity, perpetually just invent referee conspiracies. That they never talk about the fundamental problems with their side or their own coaching. It’s referees, and referees, and referees.

Not sure if it’s an editorial line change, but after City F365 have posted the full quote, but the Beeb have been disingenuous as only quoting Slot saying it was “obvious and clear that the wrong decision has been made” and not adding in the somewhat bloody important “….at least in my opinion” which makes the full quote, followed by the equally important “…which is not to say that we then would have had a result over here because you cannot predict how the second half would have gone.” Just raising it as a talking point, then answering questions on his side again being pretty dismal.

Konate was, yet again, utterly bloody dreadful yesterday. And he was demonstrably not that, earlier in his career. Is that due to Real Madrid or Slot not being good enough? VVD was, yet again, utterly bloody dreadful yesterday. And he was demonstrably not that, earlier in his career. Is that due to age or Slot not being good enough? Kerkez has been staggeringly low quality, and yet he really was very much not that, last year. Is that Slot, or stage fright. On and on; All the defensive players need to deliver more. The midfield is seemingly getting there; The forward line, getting there. The defence (and overall team shape, balance, and over-committing forward) is very poor.

Slot has to fix it, or his time will be shortlived. But, despite the inventions of the fourth estate, he is still talking in the same calm, conversational and analytical way. Affable even. And I’m inclined to give someone a bit of time and grace to show us they can figure it out, without dangerous antics that has people beaten up, or inventing a need to re-write how the game is officiated because his own players can’t seemingly avoid second yellow cards. Tom G

Tickner as consistent as PGMOL

For Newcastle Arsenal a few weeks back this is what Mr. David Tickner wrote after Nick Pope caught Gyokeres with his knee FIRST and then got the ball after: “More evidence for The Conspiracy after Arsenal were denied a penalty just because Nick Pope had actually won the ball.”

And this is what Mr. David Tickner wrote after Doku was awarded a penalty…

‘It was the right decision. The contact wasn’t massive, but it was enough. Without that contact unsettling Doku’s balance, his next touch would have been a shot on a goal guarded only by defenders. A penalty felt a reasonable outcome.’

Who does Tickner support? At least be consistent.

Last week three different Chelsea players kicked the ball away vs Spurs and not even a card, not one. Same with Liverpool in the first half vs City Sunday. Have we just given up the whole kick the ball away thing again, or is it only Arsenal players?!

If Arsenal are going to win the league this season, they’re gonna have to be near perfect discipline wise as the refs see things (and F365) for one club vs another. Liverpool are done. City are yet again the biggest challenge. Strevs, Afc, Canada

The letter of the law

Look, I know Liverpool were poor and deserved to lose. But the disallowed goal is annoying me.

Even F365 in 16 Conclusions, despite being sympathetic, have fallen for the FA’s false narrative, stating “And it does seem like by the letter of the law it was the correct decision given the clear movement Robertson made.”

If the FA had quoted the letter of the law, fair enough. They didn’t. The quoted half the law.

I’m not all that annoyed by the linesman – from his point of view at the sideline Robertson quite likely looked like he was committing an offence. I’m quite annoyed at VAR, but they are under time pressure so when we have a highly technical interpretation of the rules, I can see (through gritted teeth, if that makes sense) how they might make a mistake. I’m one of the seemingly rare breed who thinks mistakes are part of the game and would abolish VAR altogether given the chance (which I understand would have disallowed this goal anyway).

What really riles me though is the FA disingenuously quoting half of a rule to justify an incorrect decision, after having time to think about it. Their claim that Robertson was “making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper” is wrong both in the sense that he wasn’t directly in front of the goalkeeper, but also that making an obvious action isn’t the rule.

The rule states “making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball” (my emphasis).

Donnarumma is still moving to his right as the ball comes across and takes a little jump as it’s headed. He dives left immediately on landing and doesn’t get to the ball. Due to his own movement, he had no ability to play the ball, regardless of what Robertson did. Dave Lillis, Dublin

Is the title race on again?

The title race was “over” in Liverpool’s favour in August. Then it was “over” in Arsenal’s favour last week. Presumably with Man City beating Liverpool it’s “wide open”. It’s almost like stuff is being made up for clicks. 🥱 Matthew PS: In that emotional diatribe the other day from the LFC fan talking about them always standing by their players, did that include the Suarez t-shirts?