A grim end to the season in store. This has been in the making since November and nothing has improved, we say the same thing every week, there’s always an excuse. No leadership on or off the pitch with FSG seemingly uninterested in matters apart from raising ticket prices for the next 3 seasons, are they final throwing their dummy out ? Everywhere we look there’s a problem ….and no solutions ☹️☹️
It’s fucking exhausting because it feels like the same story on loop. Start well, miss chances, concede, collapse. The post captures the emotion. But what you and I are feeling isn’t just frustration at results, it’s fatigue from a cycling loop.
It looks like mentality, but it’s mostly structure. When the game flips, we don’t have the tools to regain control. No tempo setter, no real width to stretch teams, no stable rest-defence. So once we go behind, everything speeds up and falls apart.
The xG stuff muddies it tbh. On paper it says ‘we’re fine’, but the chances we create aren’t as repeatable or high leverage as the ones we concede. So it feels like bad luck, but it’s actually the same underlying weakness getting exposed in multiple ways.
The grief, the pre-season disruption all matter and the impact is fundamentally seismic and multiplicative, but they’re not the full explanation. A robust squad absorbs shocks. This one hasn’t been built properly, and Hughes hasn’t given the coach what he needs to stabilise it.
That’s why it’s draining. Because deep down you know this doesn’t get fixed by effort, or belief, or even a different coach. It gets fixed by building the team properly. And until that happens, it’s just going to keep feeling like this.
I liked the piece but the comments unfortunately romanticise a forgone era. Klopp got battered by city a lot. I will always enjoy your writing beaz but as with most places the plague of the useful idiots has been spawn
I don't know anymore, I'm no expert in analysis games but the one thing I do know is that we're not easy to watch anymore.
In many ways, Klopp spoiled us badly. We always knew they even facing a technically better team, even two or three goals down that there was going to be 100% effort going into trying to win the game. The trust in the process of playing in Klopps style was intrinsic and everyone was fully invested in it.
In this second season under Slot, I'm still trying to figure out what way the team actually wants to play. We can argue about a transition year and still not having all the pieces he might need to play in the preferred way but there's doesn't seem to be a plan there to actually use the pieces at his disposal to best effect?
There's huge gaps between lines, there's little structure apparent in pressing after losing the ball, build-up is laboured and slow and there's still nobody trying to break the lines to force opponents to turn and backtrack while we possess an advantage.
I just don't know, I'm not calling for his head, not yet anyway, but under his management we've spend hundreds of millions to become a far worse team.
As you say, there are a LOT of mitigating factors this season, even before we consider the unbalanced nature of the squad. Slot hasn't helped himself though in many ways. His press conferences are so uncomfortable to wstch that it's hard to see how a player would go the extra mile for him as its quite possible they will be hung out to dry after a bad performance. I think today may have got to the stage where it's hard to return from. That said, beat PSG, as unlikely as that seems, and anything may be possible.
Great article. I think we (in part) won the first 5 because we believed we were the best - and as belief has diminished, and then evaporated, the fine margins have swung the other way.
Blending this with your article on our poor finishing and you have 2 key drivers of how its all unravelled the way it has.
I like Slot personally, think he is a decent fella, but I think he has been given time and we are not seeing any improvements. It's turning toxic and sadly I don't think he is the right man. In part because he couldn't stop the belief evaporating.
I started thinking about this while washing up about an hour ago and it all just sort of poured out when I started writing. So here it is....
A grim end to the season in store. This has been in the making since November and nothing has improved, we say the same thing every week, there’s always an excuse. No leadership on or off the pitch with FSG seemingly uninterested in matters apart from raising ticket prices for the next 3 seasons, are they final throwing their dummy out ? Everywhere we look there’s a problem ….and no solutions ☹️☹️
It’s fucking exhausting because it feels like the same story on loop. Start well, miss chances, concede, collapse. The post captures the emotion. But what you and I are feeling isn’t just frustration at results, it’s fatigue from a cycling loop.
It looks like mentality, but it’s mostly structure. When the game flips, we don’t have the tools to regain control. No tempo setter, no real width to stretch teams, no stable rest-defence. So once we go behind, everything speeds up and falls apart.
The xG stuff muddies it tbh. On paper it says ‘we’re fine’, but the chances we create aren’t as repeatable or high leverage as the ones we concede. So it feels like bad luck, but it’s actually the same underlying weakness getting exposed in multiple ways.
The grief, the pre-season disruption all matter and the impact is fundamentally seismic and multiplicative, but they’re not the full explanation. A robust squad absorbs shocks. This one hasn’t been built properly, and Hughes hasn’t given the coach what he needs to stabilise it.
That’s why it’s draining. Because deep down you know this doesn’t get fixed by effort, or belief, or even a different coach. It gets fixed by building the team properly. And until that happens, it’s just going to keep feeling like this.
I liked the piece but the comments unfortunately romanticise a forgone era. Klopp got battered by city a lot. I will always enjoy your writing beaz but as with most places the plague of the useful idiots has been spawn
I don't know anymore, I'm no expert in analysis games but the one thing I do know is that we're not easy to watch anymore.
In many ways, Klopp spoiled us badly. We always knew they even facing a technically better team, even two or three goals down that there was going to be 100% effort going into trying to win the game. The trust in the process of playing in Klopps style was intrinsic and everyone was fully invested in it.
In this second season under Slot, I'm still trying to figure out what way the team actually wants to play. We can argue about a transition year and still not having all the pieces he might need to play in the preferred way but there's doesn't seem to be a plan there to actually use the pieces at his disposal to best effect?
There's huge gaps between lines, there's little structure apparent in pressing after losing the ball, build-up is laboured and slow and there's still nobody trying to break the lines to force opponents to turn and backtrack while we possess an advantage.
I just don't know, I'm not calling for his head, not yet anyway, but under his management we've spend hundreds of millions to become a far worse team.
What's the plan? Is there even a plan at all?
As you say, there are a LOT of mitigating factors this season, even before we consider the unbalanced nature of the squad. Slot hasn't helped himself though in many ways. His press conferences are so uncomfortable to wstch that it's hard to see how a player would go the extra mile for him as its quite possible they will be hung out to dry after a bad performance. I think today may have got to the stage where it's hard to return from. That said, beat PSG, as unlikely as that seems, and anything may be possible.
Great article. I think we (in part) won the first 5 because we believed we were the best - and as belief has diminished, and then evaporated, the fine margins have swung the other way.
Blending this with your article on our poor finishing and you have 2 key drivers of how its all unravelled the way it has.
I like Slot personally, think he is a decent fella, but I think he has been given time and we are not seeing any improvements. It's turning toxic and sadly I don't think he is the right man. In part because he couldn't stop the belief evaporating.