Arne Slot sack touted if ‘insipid tripe’ lasts throughout 2026 | OneFootball

Liverpool fans are torn between writing this off as a transition season and seeing this tripe as the beginning of the end for Arne Slot.

We also have views on panenkas, Spurs and centre-backs as we relegate Man Utd to the bottom. Watch Arsenal v Liverpool and then mail theeditor@football365.com

Starting with panenkas

Enzo Le Fée’s attempted Panenka against Brentford yesterday deserves to be filed under “lessons never learned”.

Watching it, I immediately thought of Ademola Lookman’s infamous Panenka against West Ham, still, for me, the gold standard of how not to take a penalty. Same soft touch, same total lack of disguise, same keeper barely needing to react.

The Panenka is meant to embarrass the goalkeeper. When it fails, it only ever embarrasses the taker and Le Fée managed to make it look just as pointless as Lookman’s did five years ago.

The only question is whether Le Fée has genuinely pushed for the title of worst Panenka ever, or whether Lookman’s effort remains comfortably untouchable. Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (Plot twist: I tried it in Fifa/ EA FC 26 last night and looked just a foolish)

What is Arne Slot trying to achieve at Liverpool?

Frustratingly, work got in the way of my ability to respond to Minty’s email on Tuesday. Tripe.

Essentially though, I agree with him that Slot could be utilising his youth players more, with both Danns and Rio the prime example. Danns looked really good when we saw him last season, and even if Slot is he is not 100% sure of him being a long-term first-team player. Surely, playing a player who is fighting to establish himself is better than not making a change, or playing a player who knows he will only ever be bit part.

That being said, I can see why Slot has been reluctant. For every Rio and Danns goal, you will get a game where they are ineffective due to their inexperience.

However, with the likes of Elliott I simply do not understand. Did Harvey hit on, or pants one of Slot’s family members? This cold shoulder is strange considering the need for change that we currently have at the club. Elliott is a Liverpool fan and would give his all every day for the team.

The laborious horseshoe “U” approach that we are suffering through is slower than ketchup from a bottle that has just come from the fridge. And without invention, direct running or any type of trickery, we will, as has been shown, struggle to score.

Has Slot become a poor manager, or has he been handed half a team’s worth of new players by “Handsome Hughes”, who have been unable to gel? As I said in my last post, Liverpool bought players that fitted Klopp’s system. Be it top draw – VVD and Allison, middle banding – Mane and Salah or relegated – Robertson and Gini.

However, a question must be asked: What is Slot trying for in 25/26. Last season it was a more controlled Klopp type. But over the course of this season, it has regressed to boring shite.

I do feel that he needs to be given until the end of the season, due to the amount of changes that has been forced upon him. If he gets CL football, he should get next season. However, if this insipid tripe continues into 26/27 I don’t think he will last too long.

Best regards. Ian H

This IS a Liverpool transition season, actually

To my dearest Keith Reilly,

Your letter showing your obsession with Liverpool is a classic example of arguing with a version of reality you have invented and then congratulating yourself for knocking it down.

Liverpool fans are not hiding behind the word transition, no one is using it to explain away results, Liverpool have been inconsistent and at times poor and most fans will happily say that, calling this a transition is not an excuse, it is a description, the idea that fans are suddenly retreating into it now exists entirely in your own head.

You talk about scrutiny turning to Slot (as though this is a new development!) as if that proves something, but you conveniently ignore the most important bit of context, Slot is the reigning Premier League champion, he was there last season too (did you forget?), he inherited a Klopp built side, made very few changes and won the league, 25-26 is not his first season, it is his second, last year was stability (while winning the actual league a feat only matched by one cheating club in the past 9 years!), this year is where the actual transition has begun the squad is reshaped into something different with younger players, set up for the next 5-10 years.

The fraud and borrowed time nonsense did not come from Liverpool fans, it came from the same reactionary corners that always surface the moment a team drops points, the fact that you treat that noise as meaningful analysis says more about the state of your knowledge and grasp on reality than it does about Liverpool.

Your spending argument is where it really falls apart, giving Van Dijk and Salah a renewal on terms they was already on is not throwing crazy money around, it is paying the going rate for two of the best players in world football, letting both go would have been footballing negligence and the same people criticising now would have been screaming about lack of ambition if it happened.

The full back criticism is just lazy, Frimpong is a serial title winner bought for his versatility and attacking output (and to cover 3 positions as a squad player) and then missed months through injury, Kerkez was literally in the Premier League team of the year before joining, he did struggle early, partly because he was mismanaged and partly because Robertson probably should have started the season (in my opinion), he is settling now and playing much better, but hers up writing both off as players who cannot defend this is noise dressed up as opinion (which you clearly dress up as fact).

Then we get to spunking two hundred million on strikers, which honestly tells us more about your emotional state than Liverpool’s recruitment, Ekitike has been one of the two or three best signings in the league this season and has been brilliant, Isak was in the team of the year last season and wanted by every elite club in Europe, this signing has not begun well at all I’d agree, just when it seemed the team with Isak in it was beginning to take shape he broke his leg and has been out. Unless your recruitment strategy involves psychic powers, this point is meaningless, and frankly if anything Liverpool probably should have spent more on attackers as we bought 2 but lost 3 Diaz, Nenez and Jota.

What you also fail to mention entirely is the context of genuine tragedy, the death of Diogo Jota and the loss of Matt Beard are not footnotes, they are human events that affect dressing rooms, club staff, focus and momentum, pretending football exists in some vacuum where grief has no impact (or just ignoring it altogether) might make for a neater argument (in your warped world) but it does not make it true.

You say Liverpool neglected more pressing needs and then never bother to say what they are? – I think centre back depth could have been improved, and Guehi would have made sense, but that is one player, (I think this is what Keith is referring to but who knows?) – I also think another attacker should have been brought in but then it would have meant more spunking in Keith’s warped world.

Liverpool also signed Leoni as a long-term successor to Van Dijk and he promptly did his ACL in his first game (where he was excellent), this happens every season to lots of clubs, it is football, not evidence of some grand strategic failure, we also have Joe Gomez covering both centre back and right back, something you might want to acknowledge before declaring the squad unbalanced.

What you completely ignore is the scale of change, Klopp gone after nearly a decade, Alexander Arnold sold, Diaz sold, Nunez sold, etc, etc – multiple first team signings in one summer, a record signing ruled out with a broken leg, another young defender out for the season with an ACL, tactical changes being implemented in real time, and the actual death of a long standing first team player and despite all of that Liverpool are fourth, not mid table, still competing while adapting.

That is exactly what transition looks like at an elite club, it does not mean collapse, it means turbulence while trying to evolve without dropping out of contention.

No one is hiding, no one is pretending this season has gone to plan, but insisting this is not a transition simply because Liverpool spent money and remained competitive is wilful stupidity. Lee, formerly of Blue

PGMOL: An apology

I have written in many times to comment on the incompetence of match officials and VAR’s. I have also commented on the hilarious mental gymnastics performed by the PGMOL and the likes of Dermot Gallagher in an effort to justify bizarre decisions.

But now I realise I owe them an apology as this is merely part of an elaborate game they are playing with managers as to who can come up with the most ridiculous statement whilst looking earnest and not breaking into convulsions of laughter.

The officials are now on the back foot following David Moyes’s post match interview, to paraphrase: “It was not a deliberate action (wtf? He got his hand tangled in the lad’s hair”) It wasn’t a violent act, it definitely wasn’t”.

But the absolute icing on the cake. “it just means that if you’ve got longer hair, there’s a chance you might get your hair pulled A LITTLE MORE OFTEN”.

Imagine the team talk, “Right lads, Crystal Palace this week. We’ll have to come up with a plan to stop Mateta as the hair pull is not available to us”.

So again, apologies to the PGMOL and look forward to them regaining the upper hand. Howard (is it why Salah cut his hair?} Jones

Are we in a golden era of Premier League CBs?

The criticism of Sesko from Sherwood, combined with Gyokeres’ struggles and actually new CFs more widely this season has me thinking, is this not also defences getting better?

Most Premier League centre backs these days are not only physical monsters, but comparatively good on the ball, strong in the air, fast and incredibly well drilled. Clearly my club are spoiled at the moment with Saliba and Gabriel who are unequivocally the best CBs Arsenal have had in 20+ years, but thinking about it, might that not be the same for 90% of clubs in the PL right now/over the last couple of seasons?

Off the top of my head, Chelsea (Terry-Carvallo), United (Vidic-Ferdinand) and Spurs (Aldeirwald-Vertonghan) would say no. I guess Villa might also given some club legends in their further past. Liverpool’s pair probably are (but this is the worst version of them) and the same with City. But most other teams? I feel confident they would say yes.

Are we actually in a golden era of PL CBs? Despite most people looking back to another time nostalgically as defenders being real men.

Some of this is undoubtedly the financial power and money going into scouting from the Premier League. Bournemouth’s defence last season was very punchy – bought from across Europe and then sold to 3 of the 5 last CL winners. If I look at some of the CBs across the Premier League’s ‘middle order’, (Guehi, Lacoix, Andersen, Murillo etc) there’s more talent there than I think I’ve experienced for my team, as an Arsenal fan, for most of my football watching experience.

Watching most Barclays defensive highlights is an exercise in watching some of the worst passing, positioning and attempts at tackles you’ll ever see, maybe with a few crunching tackles thrown in you wouldn’t try now (but as much imo because defenders are better at playing the space and pressuring without having to make the tackle).

Finally, the performances of English teams in Europe should be accounted for – every team basically smashing through opposition then getting blocked out/undone by Brentford at the weekend. Arsenal found it much harder to break down Everton than Atletico.

The Glazers were only passively running Man Utd into the ground

In response to Ben regarding the Glazers vs Ratcliffe, I would ask who would you rather be your boss? The uncaring passive type or the controlling, meddling type who hasn’t a clue what they are doing but thinks they know best?

The Glazer are not good owners by any stretch of the imagination. They want United to make them money and have slowly left them to decay whilst ensuring the cash keeps rolling in. Ed was their avatar and as you say, he was a banker, but even he was fairly passive as far as poisons go.

Ratcliffe is proactive. That’s why many United fans were so happy to see him. Proactive … but clueless (as far as football clubs are concerned). A much faster poison. He sees himself as the brains of the operation. United are changing much faster than they ever did under the Glazers’ hand but most of those have been awfully managed changes, where had he just kept his nose out, things would have been a lot better.

Ed wouldn’t hire a director of football, but he also wouldn’t have paid a fortune to get one in and then sack him at an even greater cost because he didn’t trust said director of football at the first hurdle. It’s bonkers. He also wouldn’t have set down ground rules about the manager having to work to United’s tactical philosophy and then immediately hired an infamously inflexible manager that required an entire new team built around his own rogue tactics.

I could go on about ETH’s new contract then sacking him etc but we’ve been through the blows. Just extrapolate what damage he has done in 2 years across the timescale of the Glazers and Ed’s era. He doesn’t seem like the type to concede even now that he isn’t the right person to call the shots on footballing matters. He’ll likely want to fix it all himself for his pride’s sake and it’s not like he hasn’t had time to figure out football club ownership at Nice. Nick

Football clubs do not have DNA

Another letter in the mailbox today where apparently Man United were a cup team and now are a cup team. Not to mention the tiring discussion of the “DNA” of the club. United are not a cup team and United are not an “attacking” team by nature. They are not an entity with their own personality. They are the 2nd richest club in the world and the richest club in the Premier League. They are also run extremely badly.

Man City are not genetically predisposed to be a great team. They just have a lot of money, and crucially are run very well, so they have won loads of league titles recently. They will not regress to their “natural” state, unless they start being run badly, or stop spending money.

Over the last 15 years United and City have basically spent the same amount of money, about £2.5b. City have won multiple league titles because they spent it very well. United haven’t, because they think spending £350k p/w (or whatever it is) on Marcus Rashford or Casimiro was a good idea.

And to the attacking “nature” of United, it’s just not true. They have had times where they scored lots of goals. And times they didn’t. Between 1968–69 and 1982–83 they had one season where they scored 70 goals or more. And that’s in a 42 game season. In the first 8 years of Fergie, they had one season where they scored 70 goals or more. Including winning the league with a 67 goal season (42 games), or 1.6 goals a game. They won the league because they conceded 31 goals, the best defence by some distance.

It took until 1998–99 until Fergie’s United averaged more than a goal per game in a season. They scored a lot of goals for a while, then it tailed off again. Between 2002–03 and 2008–09 they only had one season where they scored more than a goal a game, and that included seasons of 64 and 58 goals.

That’s not to mention the post Fergie years, where they have hit 70+ goals just once, and had 6 seasons with fewer than 60. That’s the evidence that attacking football is not in the clubs DNA, because if somehow it was, they would be doing it all the time.

United have had many periods where they have played attacking football and scored loads of goals. They have had periods where they haven’t. You can’t just claim the good bits are the club’s “DNA” when it’s going well, but ignore all the other times. Sometimes United are good, sometimes they are bad. But that is just entirely down to who is running the club at the time. Mike, LFC, Dubai

On that Burnley draw…

Decent performance from United but ultimately not putting away the many opportunities they had to score, inexplicably sitting back after taking the lead, and conceding multiple goals from the very few chances the opposition managed to create. So, fairly similar to a lot of our games this season.

In attack Fletcher chose to have the right footed Cunha on the right and the left footed Dorgu on the left, presumably to give us some width, but it didn’t work. Neither seemed willing to attack their fullback or drive into the box so Burnley had it quite easy. With Bruno in the 10 role wandering about it left Sesko alone and tightly marked in the middle.

The change at half time certainly helped. Cunha through the middle running at the defence created space for Sesko and with Bruno out wide there was now some decent delivery into the box. Even Dorgu managed one decent cross for United’s second.

The change to 4-2-3-1 showed the same basic squad issues that Amorim was having and further discredits the idea that he had specific player needs that would only work his system. United need a very good mobile defensive midfielder, probably two of them. They need dynamic fullbacks (wingbacks), probably two of them, and a back up striker.

As for the United goal that was ruled out. It gets more mental the more you watch it. You could make a case that Martinez did foul Walker, not a very convincing one but still. However the VAR replay shows Heaven and Casemiro both being held and pulled by Burnley defenders at the same time, and Casemiro was being fouled as he received the ball. It’s a ludicrous decision.

Beyond that farce United had two shots cleared off the line, forced Dubravka into a number of decent saves, and had two shots hit the woodwork. They did enough to win the game and were largely unfortunate. Again though not dissimilar from the previous game against Burnley. That game also had an own goal, United dominating then taking the lead to make it 2-1, and a 66th minute Jaidon Anthony equaliser. The difference here being the lack of a 97th minute penalty to claim victory. Dave, Manchester (Sky’s half time analysis opening with ‘its not the system, it’s the players’ after a year of Amorim formation bashing has to have been purposeful trolling)

Sherwood and Redknapp is nightmare fuel

I caught the last 25 minutes of the Burnley vs. United game last night. Same shit different day for United, with the exception of Sesko. 2 nice finishes, a record number of shots on target, lively movement, generally a huge factor in the game. Something to be positive about as a United fan.

Cut to the Sky Sports studio after full time. Having missed the build-up and first hour+ of the game, I wasn’t aware of who the pundits in situ were. The first one who came into shot when I was watching was Jamie Redknapp, which earned my customary sigh. He gave his usual ramble, the substance of which was so forgettable that it escapes me already. I was in the midst of tuning out when the camera panned to Jamie’s partner in crime.

Tim. F**king. Sherwood.

Whichever of the Sky goons was hosting, they were jumping out of their skin to put it to Tim that his half-time take of “Sesko should never wear a Man United shirt again” needed to be revised. Fair point I’d say, bearing in mind what had transpired in the 45 minutes immediately preceding.

Any normal, straight-thinking person would have spent some of that time digesting just how wildly wrong they had been proven, and rehearsing the standard mea culpa along the lines of “he’s really showed up in that second half and showed his worth, this could be a turning point”. Simple. Takes about 6 seconds, job done.

But brave Tim doubled down, gave it the big ‘un. Stood by his comments, dismissed Sesko as “not good enough”, devalued the 2 goals against “a team who will be relegated”. Then smirked and delivered some trite nonsense along the lines of “I might put him in my fantasy team now though”.

In isolation, his behaviour is hilarious. The naked insecurity dripping off him makes me smile. But then I remember that I pay a monthly fee to have this garbage served up to me, and everything goes dark. Keith Reilly

Richarlison deluded

The cheek of Richarlison liking Romero’s social media post about whatever the f that was about. He missed a header from 3 yards and his attempt to close down Semenyo for the winner was pathetic. You’re the problem Richarlison. You’re playing sh*te. Darren

Chelsea are beating themselves

If Liam Rosenior wants quick wins then he gets hold of discipline and defensive performance. In the first half of this season, we have

Played 25% of our PL games with 10 men, losing 10 points Lost 15 points from winning positions in the league this year.

Just a 50% improvement in both elements would have seen us third with Villa. There’s questions around the strategy of group and the long term viability of such a plan. But in the short term we could still make CL as the league is beyond average (or competitive) this season.