Aston Villa v Liverpool – A Not So Quick Liverpool Perspective

Aston Villa v Liverpool A Liverpool Perspective

The usual story, wrong team choices, wrong tactics, boring football, it is just copy and paste all season. The only real difference has been the scorelines. This time Slot decided to start with a back three, Jones bizarrely playing right wing-back. It, unsurprisingly, failed miserably and the team reverted to a back four, but there was an imbalance to the side. It does seem Slot has learnt nothing, as the formation has never been an issue and changing it achieved nothing other than to make the players uncomfortable. When the tactics are clearly the problem, but you stick with the same ones, with only the front four making any attempt to press, and that half-arsed at best, while the midfield get stuck in no man’s land as the defence drops off as fast as Virgil can go. Until they play like a team, either dropping off together and holding positions or all squeeze up together, there will always be major problems.

When you add that to the dross when on the ball, that is so ponderous and tedious that the commentators got bored enough to start discussing a balloon that was floating across the pitch, it is little wonder that the club is in turmoil. I have not even mentioned the lack of fitness or players’ revolt against Slot’s turgid regime either. It is astonishing that LFC are anywhere near qualifying for the Champions League this season, the play has certainly not deserved it, the total lack of creativity from open play has not deserved it and the manager and players’ part-time hours have definitely deserved nothing. It is little wonder Salah has spoken out, just a shame Slot’s ego is so huge that he will never see the truth in anything said as it criticises him and he cannot take criticism at all.

The problem is that the stats guys will point at the two possible (in the case of Martinez in the second half holding onto van Dijk’s shirt I would say probable as he held on for so long it was laughable) penalties for Liverpool and the possession statistics in order to make it seem like it was bad luck and/or poor officiating that cost them. It was not either of those though. It was, as always, lack of work (the distance the team is covering has fallen massively from the levels under Klopp), lack of fight and lack of teamwork, all of which is stemming from a manager who is failing miserably. How much longer before someone acts and puts us Liverpool out of our misery and removes Slot? How much longer…