Football News: Wolverhampton Wanderers v Liverpool

Wolverhampton Wanderers v Liverpool

First off, just to point out that I only got to watch the game once and in a busy bar, so apologies for anything I have missed. It was not helpful that it was such a tough watch as well, as the performance was poor, by both teams. It was worrying how so many players could have an off day at once, though a fair bit of that is down to Wolves being able to nullify them. The defence was the difference between the two teams – Liverpool’s played well (one horrible error aside) and allowed Wolves almost no real chances, and were able to build up play from the back fairly comfortably. In fact, other than that error allowing Wolves to equalise, this would have been a very routine and comfortable win, despite not playing well.

It does ring a warning bell over the way of playing though. Just a reminder, rather than a need for a rethink, that a one goal lead is very rarely enough in this league. I appreciate the thinking behind more control in the play, and agree, but when the lead is just one goal, the team still need to be looking to score a second. Against Wolves, it felt like the team were too content to just knock it about, feeling safe in the knowledge they had the measure of the opposition’s attack. I felt the same way, it did feel like the defence were easily able to deal with whatever Wolves could throw at them, but, and this is a very big but, playing this way does increase the chances of making a mistake. In a game you are comfortable in, those chances increase further as players mentally relax. That was happening a fair bit yesterday, with sloppy passes turning the ball over in dangerous areas.

Overall though, this is still a team in progress, with a lot of players not quite adapting well enough. To be top of the league, despite not really hitting your stride, and with a number of players struggling, is one hell of a position to be in. If Slot can get those struggling players to hit form, this could be an extremely exciting season. If those players do continue to play poorly, he is going to need to make a few changes before it does cost LFC when playing the better teams in the league. So far, the fixtures have been fairly kind to Slot, he has to make sure he takes advantage of that kindness to get his team right for the more difficult games coming up.

What I have enjoyed about Slot being in charge is that his substitutions usually improve the performance, Jones and Gakpo immediately lifted the team and allowed Mac…