Arne Slot is now saying WORRYING things with job on the brink | OneFootball

Arne Slot on Liverpool changes

“Is the question: ‘Should I change dramatically?’” Slot asked journalists this week, per the Guardian. “I don’t know what is in your head but if, for example, you want another system with five defenders that could be an issue. I don’t even have five defenders.

“The system we are playing now suits the players best. They have played this system probably throughout their whole career and there is hardly any training time for us.

"So it is almost impossible to change our complete idea about football if we play every two days. I think we have played a lot of different lineups for reasons I prefer not to do because everyone was not available.

"We have used our whole squad constantly.”

I don’t think anyone is asking for Liverpool to ‘change [their] complete idea about football’. Merely to try something different because the current system and plan hasn’t worked for a very, very long time.

Doing the same thing every single week, or close enough, and expecting different results is insane but it’s exactly what’s happening right now. But Slot’s words also don’t hold up.

These players absolutely have not played this system their entire careers. That’s nonsense. For one, Liverpool signed two players from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer who played a 3-4-3 system.

But perhaps even stranger is that essentially this entire team played a different variant of this system under Jurgen Klopp. Slot’s arrival saw an inversion of the midfield, with the sitting midfielder swapped out for a more advanced attacking midfielder.

Is that not a very simple, easy change to make? Something that brings a bit more solidity at a time when Liverpool are conceding three goals a game? They’ve even got the same player in the squad that Klopp used.

It’s understandable that Slot wouldn’t want to simply revert to the system of his predecessor. At the same time, it’s not ‘back three or nothing’.

There are infinite ways to reshape a team while retaining a back four. Virtually every manager before Slot at Liverpool swapped to a different variant at one stage or another.

Slot seems completely unwilling to deviate from his 4-2-3-1, however. That is a worrying sign that things won’t turnaround - and it ultimately might be what costs him his job.