Liverpool
Howard Webb Defends Disallowed Van Dijk Header as Slot Protests Inconsistency
Howard Webb defended the disallowed Van Dijk header; Arne Slot called the decision wrong. Justified.
PGMOL chief Howard Webb has publicly defended the decision to rule out Virgil van Dijk’s header against Manchester City, responding directly to Arne Slot’s complaints about inconsistency.
After an unusually long delay, the assistant referee raised his flag, judging that Andy Robertson was offside and “deemed to be making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper.” Neither Van Dijk nor Slot were impressed. VAR stood by the on-field call.
Webb set out the officials’ reasoning in detail. “As the ball moves towards Robertson—three yards out from goal in the middle of the six-yard box—he makes that clear action to duck below the ball,” the referees chief explained on Match Officials Mic’d Up . “It goes just over his head and finds the goal in the half of the six-yard box where he is.
“The officials have to make a judgement, did that clear action impact on the goalkeeper and his ability to save the ball? That’s where the subjectivity comes into play. They looked at that action so close to the goalkeeper and formed that opinion.
“I know that’s not a view held by everybody but it’s not unreasonable to understand why [the officials] would form that conclusion when the player is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball is coming right towards him and he has to duck to get out of the way.
“They form the conclusion that it impacts [Gianluigi] Donnarumma’s ability to dive towards the ball and make the save.
“Once they’ve made that on-field decision, the job of the VAR is to look at that and decide, ‘Was the outcome clearly and obviously wrong?’ Only Donnarumma truly knows if he was impacted by this and we have to look at the factual evidence.”
Slot was shown a previous case by a member of Liverpool’s staff. “Immediately after the game, someone showed me the goal that the same referee allowed—City against Wolves last season,” he crowed. That Molineux incident in October 2024 saw John Stones’s 95th-minute winner stand despite Bernardo Silva moving out of the ball’s path while stood in an offside position. On that occasion the on-field decision was overturned. As the Premier League explained at the time: “VAR deemed Bernardo Silva wasn’t in the line of vision and had no impact on the goalkeeper.”
Webb rejected the comparison. “There’s a clear difference here in that the ball goes directly over Sá’s head and doesn’t go over the head of Silva,” he sniffed. “He is in an offside position, importantly he moves away from the flight of the ball. ]”
Liverpool
Liverpool at a Crossroads: Slot’s Short-Term Future Hinges on Champions League Result
Slot’s future at Liverpool hinges on Wednesday’s Champions League tie as criticism and doubts grow..
A run of unsettling reports has placed intense scrutiny on Arne Slot’s position at Liverpool, with Wednesday’s Champions League last-16 second leg against Galatasaray framed as a potential turning point. The Reds travel to the tie trailing 1–0 on aggregate and return to Anfield needing to overturn that deficit.
The line of argument running through recent coverage assumes Slot holds the same reservoir of goodwill at the club as his predecessor. While both men share the same tally of Premier League titles, the German’s teams were celebrated as much for their high-energy style as their trophies. Slot himself has conceded this iteration of the team are “boring.” Supporters made their displeasure heard with boos after Sunday’s 1–1 draw with relegation-battling Tottenham Hotspur.
At present Slot is not thought to be in immediate danger of being sacked. Still, The Athletic’s James Pearce warned he must “turn this around” and that “the clocking is ticking” on finding a solution. Those alarm bells could start ringing as soon as Wednesday night.
Liverpool created a notable number of chances in Istanbul, a fact that offers hope of a comeback, but chronic defensive problems continue to compromise any sense of security at the back. Slot reportedly retains the faith of the club hierarchy, yet The Athletic’s Simon Hughes warned “it will be really, really hard for Slot to rescue back that trust” should Liverpool again exit in the round of 16.
Slot’s appointment as Liverpool’s “head coach” in the summer of 2024 coincided with the arrival of Richard Hughes as sporting director. The pair presided over the largest single-window spend by any club last summer. Hughes has been linked with a role at Al Hilal, according to The Telegraph, though no official contact is thought to have been made. Both Slot and Hughes have contracts running until 2027.
The potential loss of a close ally would only weaken Slot’s standing. Meanwhile former players continue to offer forthright assessments; Jamie Carragher labelled Liverpool a “team of individuals” after the Spurs draw. The Dutch coach has offered a different view, but the coming week will be decisive for perceptions of his stewardship.
Arsenal
Money Talks: CIES Ranks the World’s Most Valuable Squads
CIES values nine squads over $1bn; Real Madrid leads at $1.78bn while Tottenham exceed $1bn. Values.
The surge in transfer prices and squad valuations has reshaped how clubs are measured. The CIES Football Observatory produces those estimates by weighing a player’s quality, age, position and length of contract, and those individual valuations are then summed to give each squad a market value.
The scale is striking. There are nine clubs with squads valued above $1 billion. At the top is Real Madrid with a squad valuation of $1.78 billion and Kylian Mbappé listed as the most valuable player at $221 million. Barcelona follow with $1.60 billion, Lamine Yamal accounting for $403.9 million of that total. Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain each sit at $1.55 billion, with Bukayo Saka ($131.5 million) and Désiré Doué ($150.3 million) named as their most valuable players respectively.
Liverpool’s roster is valued at $1.20 billion, most valuable player Florian Wirtz ($149.8 million). Bayern Munich come in at $1.15 billion with Michael Olise ($162.6 million) as their top-rated asset. Tottenham’s squad is valued at $1.03 billion; Xavi Simons is listed as their most valuable player ($98.1 million), despite the club’s current relegation fight and Igor Tudor’s assessment that players “are lacking when we attack, we lack the quality to score the goal. We are lacking in the middle to run and we are lacking behind to stay there to suffer and not concede the goal.”
The list also includes Manchester United ($953 million, Benjamin Šeško $100.3 million) and Inter ($942 million, Lautaro Martínez $117 million). Earlier-positioned squads under $1 billion include Atlético Madrid ($903 million, Julián Álvarez $136.5 million), Juventus ($896 million, Kenan Yıldız $152.5 million) and Brighton ($894 million, Diego Gómez $86.4 million).
Several voices in the game have reflected on the market changes. Karl-Heinz Rumminegge said, “There are some players who do not come with a price tag.” Robert Lewandowski complained, “You are young, you score 10 goals in six months and some club will pay 60 or 70 million,” adding, “Before, you had to achieve something.” Vincent Kompany warned players about hype: “I always tell my players, ‘When there’s hype please don’t believe it, you’re not that good.’”
Whether the valuations mirror on-field quality or the inflation of a transfer market remains the central question CIES data brings into focus.
Analytics & Stats
Szoboszlai’s Conference League Comment Underlines Liverpool’s Finishing and Late-Goal Problems
Szoboszlai warned Liverpool must wake up; finishing inefficiency and late concessions persist. Today
Dominik Szoboszlai opened the scoring with his fourth Premier League free kick of the season, the most any Liverpool player has ever amassed in the competition’s history, but the lead did not hold. Richarlison salvaged a 90th-minute equaliser as Liverpool again dropped points late.
“I feel flat,” Szoboszlai told Sky Sports, barely raising his voice above a whisper. “We have to wake up because if we carry on like this, we should be happy with the Conference League.” Asked for an explanation behind this painfully familiar collapse — it was the eighth goal Liverpool have conceded in the 90th minute or later this season — Szoboszlai delivered a concerning response: “I don’t know why this is happening, I honestly don’t know.
“I think in the first half we played very well, we controlled the whole game and they hardly created chances apart from one or two headers. Second half we just didn’t so the same things.”
There was a clear sense of complacency after the opener: between that free kick and Richarlison’s equaliser, Tottenham registered twice as many shots on target as their hosts (six to three). Manager Arne Slot was less focused on attitude and more on finishing. “I think we are completely underperforming in terms of the chances we create and the amount of goals we score,” he said. “That’s quite a surprise if you look at how much attacking quality we have.”
Slot added: “If you’re not able to score enough, then you have to be able to keep a clean sheet, and that’s something we find really hard this season.”
The numbers underline the problem. “Liverpool have racked up 49 Premier League goals this season from an expected goals (xG) of 50.0, per FotMob.” That one-goal difference which Slot has bemoaned is almost exactly the Premier League average. Ten teams have a larger negative differential between their xG and actual goals scored, while nine different sides have been more efficient than Liverpool this season. Liverpool scored 86 goals from an xG of 83.5 last term, and nine clubs out-performed their predicted goal tally by a larger margin than the Reds.
Opta define a “big chance” as “a situation where a player is reasonably expected to score” and it is these opportunities Liverpool have frequently squandered. The side have converted 32% of their “big chances” this season—only three clubs have a lower rate. Big chances created fell from 150 (1st) in 2024–25 to 81 (6th) this season, while big chances missed moved from 92 (1st) to 55 (4th).
