Where Liverpool's Season Went Wrong Under Slot
Planning issues in the summer, combined with injuries and fitness problems, left Liverpool chasing games and compromising their style. Responsibility sits with both Slot and the club's wider decision-making.
My take on the current situation is that the planning with the Liverpool squad was wrong or incomplete this summer, and that certain long term targets were brought ahead simply because we had a chance to get them at the time. So we bought some excellent players without addressing problem areas because these were pushed back to the following window, when the rebuild would approach completion. They thought that we had enough to compete at the top regardless and could wing it until next summer, but made a bad miscalculation.
Planning and priorities
Arne Slot was part of this miscalculation and thought that we could camp out in the opposition half trying to pull low blocks apart. Of course the league turned out totally different this year, and most of the time Slot was playing catch up with injuries and fitness issues having him try desperately to get results.
It worked to some degree when he was trying to stem the bleeding, but to the detriment of the attacking dominant football we all expected to see. It certainly did not help that we conceded an inordinate amount of spectacularly unlucky goals and our two wide players fell off a cliff in terms of productivity, meaning we posed very little threat on the counter attack and our attacking play could not paper over the cracks like it has tended to do over the years.
Squad management, injuries and a compromised style
Constant injuries because of players being overplayed (Slot has to take responsibility for rather poor squad management and not trusting the players at his disposal, choosing instead to play players out of position) meant that the team was not able to consistently develop synergies and relationships, and all the time he was having a mare trying to keep players fit by trying to turn games into low event affairs hoping we had enough quality to edge games.
I cannot be certain but I am pretty sure the flagging fitness of a small core of players having to play countless games on a knife's edge also meant that Slot had to ditch cohesive front foot pressing altogether, which had the counter effect of tiring our midfielders and back line even more, with all of them having to cover massive spaces off the ball.
January decisions and shared responsibility
It certainly did not help that the higher-ups refused to budge on their long term plan and did not bring in Geertruida like he wanted to help us in January, and the less said about Guehi and Semenyo the better, that was just a catastrophe.
We can say that it was largely Slot's doing, and from a certain angle that would certainly be fair.
Judging Slot fairly
My own thinking is that he was part of a colossal misjudgment on how this season was going to turn out, and though I think that he did his best to adjust and be pragmatic when we were at our lowest nadir this season, at the end of the day he is a young coach who has never faced severe adversity in the toughest league in the world.
We saw him crack at various points in the season, but I do think he tried to do his best until the end, it is simply that he made mistakes. Though I think he is intelligent and clear-sighted enough to learn from this and improve, we cannot afford at Liverpool FC to have a young coach learn on the job.
I still insist that the higher-ups did him a disservice not sacking him earlier in the season when the squad needed a lift, either in terms of quality (Guehi and Semenyo) or help in the midfield and defence when our squad was getting stretched playing so many games (Geertruida, who can play centre mid, centre half, defensive mid or right back competently).
He was the subject of fan ire, and sure he did not endear himself to the fans with press conferences that could at times border upon being disastrous, but he is not the only person who should be the object of opprobrium, and he definitely did not deserve being called names, mocked, being called the worst Liverpool FC manager ever (he quite clearly is not) or dragged through the mud.
Hopefully we can all look forward and in time Slot's contribution can be looked at a bit more kindly than it is now.
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