Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

It's not revisionism - it's trying to rebalance from over the top declarations the other direction. His issues with erratic finishing are always there. That's just been a continuous issue with his time with Liverpool. It's the other stuff that is obviously more recent (and a callback to his worse games last season), just not being as involved, and not holding the ball up as well.

For the 'has gotten worse' this season than last claim… I mean, I don't know how someone can come to that conclusion really. From last year to this, his hold up play has been much better, his link play has been much better, his choice of runs and his decision making in passing has been much better. Still not perfect of course, but demonstrably improved. There are no shortage of posts stating this all throughout the season. His finishing, unfortunately, has not improved enough though. But overall his game has demonstrably improved - until it all fell apart recently, along with the form of the rest of the team.

He's a problem, and a conundrum - even with the other things he offers (and he does offer them), can you have a CF who misses so many close-in goal-poaching chances? At this stage, I'd kinda say no - to be a CF for a real challenging side, he needs to improve his finishing in those 'tap in' situations. But he fits like a glove into either of our wide positions, and indeed it's runs from those areas where he tends to cause the most problems anyway.

I'd look at a game like our win over Bournemouth in January as an example of how he works best with us - played left wing, with Jota centre, and Diaz right. Nunez and Jota scored 2 each, with Nunez giving us the lead - something he's done more than anyone for us this season - and playing a part in all 4 goals. It had the benefits of him coming inside when there was space on the break, and running on the outside when it was congested. I think we'd have seen a lot more of that if Jota hadn't spent so much time injured.

We have about 5 actually No.10's in the squad so if are going to change to a system utilising one, I doubt trent is going to be one of them.

__________Alisson_______

Vagnoman_Araujo_VVD_Robertson

___MacAllister__EdsonAlvarez_____

Salah____Trent______Diaz_____

_____LautaroMartinez________

Make it happen.

By Phil HayApr 29, 2024

Hello! It’s Monday, there’s a full week ahead.

Don’t let the Ben White in your office distract you. Coming up:

👋 What will Arne Slot bring to Liverpool?

😡 Klopp’s tiff with Salah — but forward expected to stay

🪄 Dark Arts fitting Arsenal like a glove

📈 Messi’s 50 goal-contributions challenge

Goodbye ‘Gegenpress’, hello ‘Topsport’ 

Jurgen Klopp’s appointment in 2015 made gegenpressing the buzzword at Liverpool. For nine years the club have fed on his brand of the counter-press; heavy-metal football, as it was dubbed for a while.

Very
soon, gegenpressing will make way for Totalsport, the philosophy which
brought Feyenoord the Dutch title last season. Change is coming to
Anfield in the form of Arne Slot, the coach who Liverpool have chosen as
Klopp’s replacement.

Terms for him were agreed with Feyenoord late on Friday. Here are the headlines from it:

• Liverpool sources say the fee is around £9.4m ($11.8m). Feyenoord
  claim it is worth more than £11m ($13.8m). You tend to get disparity in
  the numbers given by different sides of a negotiation but one way or
  another, Slot has not come cheap.
• He’ll bring members of his coaching staff from Feyenoord, including
  assistant Sipke Hulshoff and head of performance Ruben Peeters. Those
  seem like key additions in terms of continuity.
• We’re still to learn the precise details of Slot’s contract but
  Liverpool will commit to him long-term. As soon as he said openly that
  he wanted to leave Feyenoord last week, this was a fait accompli.

Is it a risk for Liverpool?

For all that Slot is
highly respected in European circles, the Liverpool job will give him a
global profile overnight. For the wider world, there’s much to learn
about him.

In truth, it’s some leap for the 45-year-old Dutchman —
not because he lacks suitable credentials, but because Feyenoord was
his first high-level coaching job.

He’s
been trending upwards since he took a smaller Dutch side, AZ Alkmaar,
to second place in the Eredivisie in 2019-20. That sort of
over-performance always makes rival clubs sit up.

At Feyenoord, he
was part of what became known as ‘Totalsport’ — a linear project where
every cog in the machine from top to bottom was important but not
indispensable. It’s how the post-Klopp era will look at Liverpool.

Tactically, he’s unashamedly influenced by Pep Guardiola.
His style has similarities to that of Roberto De Zerbi at Brighton. The
Athletic’s Adam Crafton got the chance to spend time with Slot a year
ago. He’s written at length today about Slot’s charisma and ideas.

The
conclusion I reached was that Slot won’t try to run a dictatorship at
Anfield. It amused me that some at Feyenoord have never heard him raise
his voice at the training ground.

Part of you still wonders if Bayer Leverkusen’s Xavi Alonso was the man Liverpool really craved. But their haste in nailing down terms with Feyenoord is a big vote of confidence in Slot.

Salah fuels fire… but is likely to stay

As
Adam’s piece points out, no transfer fee under Slot at Feyenoord went
higher than £9m ($11.2m). Feyenoord’s top wage is less than £40,000
($50,000) a week. Needless to say, he’ll be dealing with much bigger
numbers and much bigger egos at Anfield.

That was demonstrated by the extraordinary spat between Klopp and Mo Salah during Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with West Ham United on Saturday, a result which confirmed that their bid for the Premier League title is done.

Neither
would say what the disagreement was about, and Klopp tried to brush it
off afterwards. Salah then poured fuel on it by telling journalists
there would be “fire if I speak”.

They’ve been good for each other, Klopp and Salah, and we’ve just broken the news that Liverpool expect the Egyptian to stay next season. Even so, this is what the end of days for a manager usually looks like. At least the documentary should be good…

.

A Dutchman who comes across as arrogant.... Well I never!

I think it's as much the demeanor and how they speak as anything, come across that way but often nothing behind it.

The point I was making is that the club hierarchy are not going to settle for being also rans, Klopp will be gone but the core group of players will still be here. We have shown this season that even with the team in transition it's possible for the squad we have to challenge Man City. Klopp's key strength has been his man management, getting the players to buy into his playing philosophy quickly was a master stroke. If Slot can perform the same feat then the team can be very competitive next season.

I don't expect there to be a major clear out of players from the squad in the summer. There's a few tweaks required and I assume that the club's transfer targets are already locked in. There may be plenty of media headlines suggesting that Slot is going to bring X, Y and Z, however that's not how the club operates. The core group will remain in place and it will be supplemented with new additions.

Finishing in the top 4 will be the minimum expectation for Slot, but the evidence is there that the ceiling for this group of players is much higher.

I would be very happy if under the new manager/coach, the domestic cup competitions were used for fielding the second choice players and make the league and European competitions the main focus. Under Klopp, the seasons when the team was eliminated from the FA Cup in the 4th/5th round are when we were most competitive at the business end of the season.

It's no coincidence that Arsenal went out of the domestic cups early this season and are still going strong with 3 league games remaining.

FSG being quick to act to sack each of Hodgson, Dalglish & Rodgers for varying reasons show that they won't settle for a manager not doing good enough relative to expectations. Dalglish reached 2 cup finals, winning 1 and was sacked for poor league performance once the league ended. Rodgers got a brief stay of execution but was gone once the first sign of another poor run of form appeared.

''While it may have been expected that Taylor face punishment for his clear mistake, the 45-year-old will still referee in the Premier League this weekend.

PGMOL submitted their appointments to the top flight with Taylor in charge of Burnley vs. Newcastle in Saturday’s 3pm kickoff.

That may be viewed as a demotion of sorts, with Paul Tierney appointed the Liverpool vs. Tottenham game''

From bad to worse if you ask me

PGMOL haven't admitted it was an error, have they?

But the PL brand is much more valuable if the winners change regularly. Rather than being crooks, I reckon the refs are just incompetent. Maybe I’m naive.

They will not admit it was an error

Klopp's "arrogance" on transfers: I'd be wary on judging him on saying he didn't need players.

For all we know they tried, failed and rather than publicly moan he decided to say the right thing in public

That's nonsense. He said that one should have been a penalty. Why are you posting lies? There is a conspiracy theory section in boards.

Stop making stuff up Toby. I don't like Webb as much as the next fella but he did not say that. He agreed that the Hudson Odoi should have been granted, and that's the one most pundits pointed too. Everyone else was 50/50 on the others from what I have seen.

The VAR rules are that a monitor review is only requested when the VAR official believes a mistake has been made. A doubtful or dubious decision does NOT go for monitor review.

Hence, in the vast majority of cases the ref will over-turn his decision when called to the monitor as the VAR official is confident a mistake has been made.

Commentators/analysts who (still continually) say "well at least they should have asked the ref to have a look at the monitor" haven't a clue what they are talking about (or some I think are deliberately misleading / courting controversy). If every dubious decision went to monitor review it would be total farce.

Hence, if Webb is saying he would have sent it for monitor review, then he's admitting he thinks it's a mistake (although I very much doubt his sincerity!)

Then he's admitting it but in a roundabout way and he's very much doing that on purpose.

The 2015 thread will be delighted with that news!

You're wrong. He covered his tracks , and Atwell's on VAR by saying '' "We would have preferred an intervention on this situation for the referee to go to the screen to make a judgement for himself''

But why, one Ref is as good as the other, Atwell is a Ref too, and he's the one with all the angles and slow motion, so to come out in the aftermath and say,, '' we would have preferred'' doesn't cut it. Fact remains 3 stonewall penalties, of the type City win constantly, were not given by a Luton fan on VAR.

Webb ''Probably this, probably that''

But not once did he say the words, '' this was a wrong call, it was 100% a penalty''

Have to admit I haven't heard of Carter Pennington, local 17yo centre back, signed a pro contract

https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/carter-pinnington-signs-first-professional-contract-liverpool