Being Liverpool manager remains as much a civic duty as a coaching job. The club expects a leader who can provide direction in difficult moments, a role managers from Bill Shankly to Sir Kenny Dalglish accepted. Dalglish took on that burden after Hillsborough in 1989 when 97 Liverpool fans lost their lives. He attended funeral after funeral, four in a day at one point. It took such a toll on Dalglish\u2019s health that his body came out in blotches and he eventually resigned. I stayed in his house once and noticed a book about stress management on the shelf in the guest-room.<\/p>\n
Arne Slot has so far combined empathy with results. Fans value his engagement with the city and the club, and he meets poorly children at the training ground, schedule permitting. Last season he was named Manager of the Year after making a team inherited from J\u00fcrgen Klopp more compact, deploying Ryan Gravenberch at No 6 to shield the defence, and making decisive selections and in-game changes that delivered a title.<\/p>\n
That goodwill, however, will not prevent accountability. Liverpool were humiliated 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday and Slot\u2019s tactical choices are under scrutiny. He could ask the side to move the ball quicker from the back, start Curtis Jones at right-back with Conor Bradley injured, or pick Joe Gomez instead of Ibrahima Konate at centre-back. Withdrawing Dominik Szoboszlai into defence weakens the midfield.<\/p>\n
Transfer decisions are also a factor. Slot can lament a late window that missed targets such as Marc Gu\u00e9hi, or the decision to allow Jarell Quansah to join Bayer Leverkusen. Tom Werner attended the Forest match and witnessed the summer investment of \u00a3440 million ($576 million) yield little on the pitch.<\/p>\n
There are tactical questions around Alexander Isak. The \u00a3125 million ($163 million) striker had 14 touches and offered no clear goal threat against Forest. Isak has played 497 minutes for Liverpool and 226 for his country. He needs service of the type he enjoyed at Newcastle, but Liverpool\u2019s wide players and full-backs have not delivered consistent crossing. Conor Bradley has provided only 12 crosses in 532 Premier League minutes.<\/p>\n
Liverpool sit 11th and 11 points behind Arsenal. In the Champions League they have nine points after four games and are eighth in the league phase. Remaining in the top eight to avoid a play-off is vital for seeding. Wednesday\u2019s home game with PSV Eindhoven is therefore of vital importance. For all respect for Slot\u2019s humanity, he will ultimately be judged on results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot faces a make-or-break Champions League tie with PSV as Liverpool’s season hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[195,299,1098],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot","tag-curtis-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}