Wayne Rooney delivered a sharp assessment of Liverpool\u2019s situation, questioning Arne Slot\u2019s authority while highlighting a downturn from several senior players.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old spoke on this week\u2019s The Overlap and reiterated that Slot\u2019s recent title win does not shield him from scrutiny. \u201cIt\u2019s strange isn\u2019t it when you\u2019re talking about Slot being on an audition to keep his job when he has obviously recently won the Premier League,\u201d Rooney said. \u201cI have met him a couple of times, but I just don\u2019t think, for Liverpool, he has that aura\u2014and maybe that\u2019s because Liverpool have just come off the back of J\u00fcrgen Klopp as manager\u2014it\u2019s difficult for anyone to do that but I just don\u2019t think there is that aura about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rooney turned his attention to individual performances, naming Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson as figures who have not been at their peak. \u201cIf you look at Liverpool last season to now, Salah and Van Dijk haven\u2019t been their best,\u201d Rooney fretted. \u201cThen you\u2019ve got Trent [Alexander-Arnold] who\u2019s missing, Robertson hasn\u2019t played a lot of games, Luis D\u00edaz [left] and the [Diogo] Jota situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven Darwin N\u00fa\u00f1ez brought something, he wasn\u2019t great, but he brought something. Liverpool have lost a lot of players so it\u2019s sort of a rebuild period [for them].\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistical evidence of Salah\u2019s drop in productivity was noted: the club\u2019s regular scorer produced a goal or assist every 72 minutes last season, a rate that has fallen to one every 154 minutes this term.<\/p>\n
Rooney qualified his criticism, defending the long-term standing of the individuals involved. \u201cFor me, Salah is one of the Premier League\u2019s greatest of all time , and Van Dijk will be in the conversation as one of the best,\u201d Rooney claimed. \u201cI don\u2019t think he is the best ever, but in this generation, he is certainly the best centre back, so you cannot hold that against those two players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about Slot\u2019s future, Rooney was unequivocal on ambitions for European qualification. \u201cI have spoken to managers, and I know they can be difficult at times, but if he doesn\u2019t get them top five in the Premier League, he will be gone, for sure,\u201d he warned. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy to say when he has just won the Premier League.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rooney says Slot lacks the ‘aura’ Liverpool needs and highlights a dip from Salah and Van Dijk this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[220,299,1047],"class_list":["post-6934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-andy-robertson","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6934","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=6934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}