Gary Neville urges Arne Slot to consider something he’s only done twice at Liverpool so far | OneFootball

Gary Neville has advised Arne Slot to consider a radical change to his tactical setup at Liverpool in order to arrest their ongoing slump.

A 3-0 thrashing at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday has seen the champions plummet into the bottom half of the Premier League table, with any realistic notion of a title retention surely killed off over the weekend.

The Reds have lost their last two matches by an aggregate 6-0 scoreline and even have the rare ignominy of a negative goal difference with a third of the season gone, although Martin Keown insists that the head coach shouldn’t be sacked so soon after winning the top-flight crown.

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Neville calls for Slot to ‘change the style’ at Liverpool

Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, the Sky Sports pundit claimed that Slot should implement a change of formation which he believes would give Liverpool a more solid foundation in defence and midfield.

Neville said: “As a collective, I think the manager has to change the style or the system, and he has to help them. That means being more solid in midfield and the back, and I’m talking about personnel changes.

“[Milos] Kerkez is struggling, [Ibrahima] Konate is struggling, so do you have to put four centre-backs in your back four and just keep a narrow, tight back four and tell everybody that you’re adapting you mean business to keep clean sheets and stop teams having chances on your goal?

“Then in midfield, you put a narrow four in there. That could be [Dominik] Szoboszlai, [Alexis] Mac Allister, [Ryan] Gravenberch and [Florian] Wirtz or [Cody] Gakpo tucked in a bit more narrow. You might leave [Mo] Salah off [Hugo] Ekitike or [Alexander] Isak or play Ekitike and Isak. Leave them up there, make sure they work back as a two and do something a bit different.

“It feels really basic and I’m telling a world-class coach in Arne Slot what to do, but I’ve seen world-class managers drop their ego on how they’re going to play. Forget ‘we’re a great side and a great club’ – you’re not at this moment. You’re easily beatable, so you have to do something different and take everyone really seriously and pay them some respect by making sure that you change.”

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Liverpool have used 4-4-2 to good effect previously

Slot has mostly played with a 4-2-3-1 since taking charge of Liverpool, so it’d make for a significant transition if he were to adopt Neville’s suggested changes.

However, the Dutchman has utilised a 4-4-2 with the Reds twice before, both times to winning effect. The first instance was in the 3-2 Carabao Cup win at Brighton last season, and the other was the 5-1 thrashing of Eintracht Frankfurt only a month ago (Transfermarkt).

The latter game in particular might represent a strong case for implementing the pundit’s suggested setup, and adopting a more pragmatic approach could at least help to stem the tide of goals being conceded, which in turn will give them a better chance of winning matches again.

It could mean sacrificing some of the licence for the full-backs to get forward, but we’d rather see a natural defender in Joe Gomez used at right-back than Szoboszlai, whose best work has evidently been in midfield.

Slot won’t overhaul his style of play just because of what Neville says, and the Liverpool boss should obviously trust his instincts. However, given how dismally the last two months have gone, the 47-year-old might be wise to consider a few tactical tweaks to at least give his team a more solid foundation.

It doesn’t have to be a permanent alteration, but rather a short-term fix just to rebuild momentum and confidence and stop the Reds from ‘going backwards’, as Keown put it.