‼️ Slot's Liverpool in Managed Decline
I am beyond bored now. Liverpool are not merely dull to watch, they are anaesthetised. The 0–0 with Leeds was not an accident or an off day, it was the logical outcome of a side playing football as an act of self preservation rather than expression.
Liverpool had the ball, lots of it, but possession has become a comfort blanket. It is hoarded, stroked, recycled, and never trusted. Leeds sat deep, invited pressure, and were scarcely troubled. One glaring Ekitike miss aside, there was no sense of threat, no surge, no collective insistence that a goal had to be forced into existence. The game passed without heat, without anger, without belief. Anfield knew it early, that familiar sinking feeling, and the cold only sharpened the emptiness.
This is not control. It is fear dressed up as structure. Everything is slowed down, choices are delayed, risk is treated as recklessness. The ball moves, but the team does not.
I'd give Konate, Van Dijk, Ekitike, Rio and Frimpong 7/10, the rest of them get 5 at best. Alexis Mac Allister is a genuine worry now, he was supposed to come on with freshness and purpose, but it's like playing with 10-men. I know it goes against permitted convention to criticise Florian Wirtz, but he looks like a lad missing the Bundesliga's winter break.
Arne Slot looks like a manager managing himself now. The football screams caution, and so do the words afterwards. Bland, obvious observations that insult the intelligence of anyone who watched. There is a widening chasm between what is said and what our eyes report. That is always dangerous ground.
I do not believe Liverpool will sack him mid season. That decision, if it were coming, would already have arrived. The floor was always Champions League qualification, however it was achieved, however joyless the route. And he will probably get there, not because Liverpool are good, but because too many others are worse. That is not progress, it is survival.
What worries me more is the erosion of identity. Whatever still lingered from the Klopp years is dissolving into something grey and joyless. Liverpool no longer impose themselves, they negotiate with matches. They wait. They hope. They endure.
After a day like that, honesty was required. A simple admission that this was not good enough, that supporters deserved better than freezing through a performance devoid of courage. Instead we get detachment.
Fulham is next. I will not watch it live, and for the first time in a long time, I am not particularly bothered. That is the real defeat.
📊 Federico Chiesa has averaged a goal or assist every 71 minutes in his Liverpool career so far.
He won 3/4 duels today. Looked lively when he came on.
Deserves to start.
No alcohol, no tattoos, no drugs, no negativity. Just a 40 year old man who has nothing left to prove, still doing his thing..
Ronaldo makes us believe discipline beats everything. A true GOAT
FT: Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool
For the second weekend in a row, the Reds lose to a stoppage time goal in London.
That is an absolute sickener for the champions, who've now lost three times in eight days
It's going to be a lonnnnnng international break 😭