I have defended Slot from a lot of criticism this season because I think ultimately the teams with the better players, more balanced squads tend to win, and those teams lacking that... look like we look.
But... the Macca / Curtis thing is looking increasingly bizarre and is the kind of thing that makes you worry the manager has actually just lost the plot. It's been odd for weeks/months now, but yesterday was the apotheosis of this oddity. Macca could not have looked more like a 36 year old in a 26 year old's game out of possession. (A penny for Gravenberch's thoughts as he collected a yellow for needing to take out a Gala player who waltzed past Macca is if simply wasn't there....)
But he also was so poor on the ball. And yet he gets the full 90.
It makes you wonder if something has happened behind the scenes of course. But then you see what happened in front of the scenes with Mo and he's starting every game again. So that suggests Slot is not the type to ice a player due to a disagreement off the field.
A comment on the page for the Distance Covered podcast suggested Jones isn't being played because he is being sold in the summer (with the inference being they don't want him to get injured). It's a plausible theory, because selling homegrown players helps the books. But then if that command has come down to Slot from Hughes, the suits are making it harder for the boss to do his job.
Selling Jones would be a shock, but if contract talks broke down it would be logical. The club won’t want to repeat a Trent scenario for a rotation player with high value. Maybe they already lined up a transfer for another homegrown midfielder and thus they don’t mind to let one go for a profit. Otherwise, they would be very boxed in this summer. Very cold and unpopular decision if it turns out this way, though.
I wonder if the Inter rumours in January turned his head. He's never truly established himself in the Liverpool first team and the opportunity to play for a Serie A/CL contender every week would be very tempting. Look at how Scott McTominay took Italy by storm!
The far simpler explanation is structural. Look at the contracts. Out of the four main midfielders, Jones and Mac Allister are the only two who haven’t been offered extensions. That usually tells you something about where the club see the medium-term picture. Liverpool tend to telegraph these things quietly. If new terms aren’t coming, it usually means the club are at least open to a sale.
The other issue is positional chemistry.
Jones is a really good possession footballer. He protects the ball, carries well, and helps you keep control in tight spaces. But what he doesn’t do naturally — and this matters in Slot’s structure — is hold his position. Like Gravenberch, he likes to drift and roam. Like Szoboszlai, he likes to pop up in different zones.
So if you play those profiles together you end up with three roaming midfielders. Nobody really anchoring the shape. That’s bad alchemy.
It’s actually why Mac Allister, even being so bloody leggy this year, still ends up being useful. He at least understands when to sit and hold the structure, even if he doesn’t always have the legs to execute it perfectly anymore.
So the Jones situation is both him wanting to leave, and the club deciding to move on from him. It's simply that the club don’t see him as a natural fit in the midfield balance they’re trying to build.
I think we sell Endo, Mac, Jones and get in Wharton plus a Joao Gomes / Mateus Fernandes type and have a midfield 6 of Grav, Wharton, Wirtz, Szoboszlai, Gomes, Trey. In that order of playing time.
It's interesting that this decision would be viewed as unpopular given how much crap the online fanbase has volleyed at Jones previously. But it comes to order of preference at some point. 'We dislike Jones but we dislike Slot more, so Jones is my friend'. Not saying you're doing this, but it's evident online.
The less said about the online fanbase the better. I don’t see Slot’s contract connected to Jones’. I like to see him extend, but running down his contract does seem to be a worse alternative to selling him for a healthy profit.
For my taste, Jones lacks one-touch play and vision to be a consistent starter, but he offers threat, game intelligence and press resistance and he might develop the other trades when he reaches his prime.
Selling him would be unpopular because he is one of the best academy graduates since Klopp arrived, 2nd to Trent imo.
I think there are two things happening here, and it’s important not to throw one away to make the other point.
The “we were unlucky” take isn’t lazy. There’s real merit to it. Over the two games we’ve generated 3.12 xG against Galatasaray and scored zero, which is genuinely odd given how clinical we’ve been in other matches this season. On another night one or two of those chances go in and nobody is writing essays about the performance. The bad luck is real.
But the problem is we stacked complications on top of the bad luck.
The control numbers are pretty stark. Liverpool normally average a bit over 4 passes per possession in Europe and around 14–15 sequences of 10+ passes per game. Here it dropped to 2.8 passes per sequence and we had two long possessions all night. Interceptions spiked to 18, turnovers crept up despite us having less of the ball than usual, and the whole game became fragmented.
And I can’t imagine Slot told them to go out and play chaos-ball.
What he clearly asked for was more speed. But there’s a difference between moving the ball faster and playing the game faster emotionally. We’ve seen this before — Wolves away in the League Cup was similar. “Play faster” seems to translate for this group into forcing passes, rushing vertical balls, and turning the match into a series of broken transitions instead of circulating the ball with intent. Faster football becomes messier football, and suddenly you’ve lost control.
What’s funny is the attack itself wasn’t totally devoid of structure. There were patterns once we got into the final third. The problem was the approach play kept collapsing before those patterns could really settle. The ball kept changing hands. So we ended up creating chances inside a match that never felt stable.
And that’s where the real issue lies. Gala are old, streetwise and perfectly comfortable living inside a chaotic game in that stadium. Fouls, set pieces, interceptions, the crowd roaring every 30 seconds. That’s their oxygen. The one thing you shouldn’t do against a side like that is keep feeding the chaos.
Which is why, ironically, the slower Slot style everyone complains about would probably have been the right approach here. Long possessions. Drain the crowd. Make their legs go. Turn the night into a slow suffocation.
Instead the game stayed volatile. So yes, the finishing variance hurt us.
But we also helped create the kind of match where variance has the biggest say.
Are we operating in a landscape where Slot is the only coach to do this? Cast your mind back to 22/23. Klopp refused to budge from his preferred midfield, to the point that recruitment actually tried to get the rebuild going, and he refused. Trust is an intangible between players and coaches. We see it with Pep, where even though Dias and Silva are broadly over the hill, he keeps playing them. Fergie kept bringing Scholes back from retirement. Mourinho took Matic with him to United and then also Roma. It's not new. The idea that this is some unique trait to Slot is kinda strange.
I'm also on the latest Distance Covered podcast discussing the match:
https://distancecovered.substack.com/p/episode-106-bad-news-about-hell
I have defended Slot from a lot of criticism this season because I think ultimately the teams with the better players, more balanced squads tend to win, and those teams lacking that... look like we look.
But... the Macca / Curtis thing is looking increasingly bizarre and is the kind of thing that makes you worry the manager has actually just lost the plot. It's been odd for weeks/months now, but yesterday was the apotheosis of this oddity. Macca could not have looked more like a 36 year old in a 26 year old's game out of possession. (A penny for Gravenberch's thoughts as he collected a yellow for needing to take out a Gala player who waltzed past Macca is if simply wasn't there....)
But he also was so poor on the ball. And yet he gets the full 90.
It makes you wonder if something has happened behind the scenes of course. But then you see what happened in front of the scenes with Mo and he's starting every game again. So that suggests Slot is not the type to ice a player due to a disagreement off the field.
It's genuinely a head scratcher.
A comment on the page for the Distance Covered podcast suggested Jones isn't being played because he is being sold in the summer (with the inference being they don't want him to get injured). It's a plausible theory, because selling homegrown players helps the books. But then if that command has come down to Slot from Hughes, the suits are making it harder for the boss to do his job.
It's strange all round, whatever the explanation.
Selling Jones would be a shock, but if contract talks broke down it would be logical. The club won’t want to repeat a Trent scenario for a rotation player with high value. Maybe they already lined up a transfer for another homegrown midfielder and thus they don’t mind to let one go for a profit. Otherwise, they would be very boxed in this summer. Very cold and unpopular decision if it turns out this way, though.
I wonder if the Inter rumours in January turned his head. He's never truly established himself in the Liverpool first team and the opportunity to play for a Serie A/CL contender every week would be very tempting. Look at how Scott McTominay took Italy by storm!
The far simpler explanation is structural. Look at the contracts. Out of the four main midfielders, Jones and Mac Allister are the only two who haven’t been offered extensions. That usually tells you something about where the club see the medium-term picture. Liverpool tend to telegraph these things quietly. If new terms aren’t coming, it usually means the club are at least open to a sale.
The other issue is positional chemistry.
Jones is a really good possession footballer. He protects the ball, carries well, and helps you keep control in tight spaces. But what he doesn’t do naturally — and this matters in Slot’s structure — is hold his position. Like Gravenberch, he likes to drift and roam. Like Szoboszlai, he likes to pop up in different zones.
So if you play those profiles together you end up with three roaming midfielders. Nobody really anchoring the shape. That’s bad alchemy.
It’s actually why Mac Allister, even being so bloody leggy this year, still ends up being useful. He at least understands when to sit and hold the structure, even if he doesn’t always have the legs to execute it perfectly anymore.
So the Jones situation is both him wanting to leave, and the club deciding to move on from him. It's simply that the club don’t see him as a natural fit in the midfield balance they’re trying to build.
I think we sell Endo, Mac, Jones and get in Wharton plus a Joao Gomes / Mateus Fernandes type and have a midfield 6 of Grav, Wharton, Wirtz, Szoboszlai, Gomes, Trey. In that order of playing time.
It's interesting that this decision would be viewed as unpopular given how much crap the online fanbase has volleyed at Jones previously. But it comes to order of preference at some point. 'We dislike Jones but we dislike Slot more, so Jones is my friend'. Not saying you're doing this, but it's evident online.
The less said about the online fanbase the better. I don’t see Slot’s contract connected to Jones’. I like to see him extend, but running down his contract does seem to be a worse alternative to selling him for a healthy profit.
For my taste, Jones lacks one-touch play and vision to be a consistent starter, but he offers threat, game intelligence and press resistance and he might develop the other trades when he reaches his prime.
Selling him would be unpopular because he is one of the best academy graduates since Klopp arrived, 2nd to Trent imo.
I was curious how other teams played there. How was their finishing? Are they intimidated and get the yips?
The other 4 teams to play in ‘hell’ this season have all scored at lease once, Juve twice.
Others - 5 goals, 5.6 xG, 46 shots, 15 on target.
Liverpool - 0 goals, 3.12 xG, 31 shots, 10 on target.
Nope, just us.
Bodo and Juve collectively scored three goals from 15 shots... Liverpool had 16 and 15 shots in their two matches respectively.
I think there are two things happening here, and it’s important not to throw one away to make the other point.
The “we were unlucky” take isn’t lazy. There’s real merit to it. Over the two games we’ve generated 3.12 xG against Galatasaray and scored zero, which is genuinely odd given how clinical we’ve been in other matches this season. On another night one or two of those chances go in and nobody is writing essays about the performance. The bad luck is real.
But the problem is we stacked complications on top of the bad luck.
The control numbers are pretty stark. Liverpool normally average a bit over 4 passes per possession in Europe and around 14–15 sequences of 10+ passes per game. Here it dropped to 2.8 passes per sequence and we had two long possessions all night. Interceptions spiked to 18, turnovers crept up despite us having less of the ball than usual, and the whole game became fragmented.
And I can’t imagine Slot told them to go out and play chaos-ball.
What he clearly asked for was more speed. But there’s a difference between moving the ball faster and playing the game faster emotionally. We’ve seen this before — Wolves away in the League Cup was similar. “Play faster” seems to translate for this group into forcing passes, rushing vertical balls, and turning the match into a series of broken transitions instead of circulating the ball with intent. Faster football becomes messier football, and suddenly you’ve lost control.
What’s funny is the attack itself wasn’t totally devoid of structure. There were patterns once we got into the final third. The problem was the approach play kept collapsing before those patterns could really settle. The ball kept changing hands. So we ended up creating chances inside a match that never felt stable.
And that’s where the real issue lies. Gala are old, streetwise and perfectly comfortable living inside a chaotic game in that stadium. Fouls, set pieces, interceptions, the crowd roaring every 30 seconds. That’s their oxygen. The one thing you shouldn’t do against a side like that is keep feeding the chaos.
Which is why, ironically, the slower Slot style everyone complains about would probably have been the right approach here. Long possessions. Drain the crowd. Make their legs go. Turn the night into a slow suffocation.
Instead the game stayed volatile. So yes, the finishing variance hurt us.
But we also helped create the kind of match where variance has the biggest say.
Slot has his favourites even Stevie Wonder can see that 🤦♂️
Are we operating in a landscape where Slot is the only coach to do this? Cast your mind back to 22/23. Klopp refused to budge from his preferred midfield, to the point that recruitment actually tried to get the rebuild going, and he refused. Trust is an intangible between players and coaches. We see it with Pep, where even though Dias and Silva are broadly over the hill, he keeps playing them. Fergie kept bringing Scholes back from retirement. Mourinho took Matic with him to United and then also Roma. It's not new. The idea that this is some unique trait to Slot is kinda strange.