I can’t get over how quickly Slot has gone from proper baller manager, win Eredivisie, win Prem at the first time of asking, Next Ancelotti vibes. The kind of bloke who drops Quansah at HT for a poor display and commands instant respect…
…to this. Completely clueless, tactically inflexible, just playing the big names in the same formation despite historically bad form.
Astonishing.
In retrospect, it was always going to be a tough start:
Massive distractions in the off-season with Diogo’s death, important cogs leaving (TAA, Diaz, even Quansah), a massive infusion of new young players with insufficient time to find their legs, especially Isak.
And don’t even talk about the injuries: Leoni, Macca, Frimpong. That’s the part that I’ve been most disappointed with, and that’s almost always something wrong with the fitness training.
Have we changed coaches when it comes to fitness, or was it simply that the timing of Jota’s death meant that very little true conditioning was done in those summer months following which has affected the players ever since?
The poor results this season in my mind have been caused by a few things.
- Slot wants our midfield to press less aggressively, a departure from our klopp system. This is a good idea in the long run as it plays more to his strengths
- We got a very unbalanced set of players this summer, very attack heavy
- Jota’s death
The combination of these I think has created a lot of uncertainty in the team, which I think could only be managed effectively by a truly generational manager (like klopp). I don’t think there’s a better man for the job right now, and I have a good feeling we’ll be back in a big way in the coming months as things get sorted and settled
