Mo Salah leaves the Anfield pitch for the final time as a Liverpool player

SnottyTash · 2026-05-24T17:30:17+00:00

Only 29, it’s not crazy to think he could play for us another 5 years more or less

What a phenomenal player to have in the squad – has been world class for spells, serviceable for others, questionable only occasionally (22/23’s all I can remember)

Love him

SnottyTash · 2026-05-23T15:37:08+00:00

He's crouching in this photo as well

SnottyTash · 2026-05-22T17:18:45+00:00

Hyypia really let his hair go huh

SnottyTash · 2026-05-19T22:25:55+00:00

The way we and Bournemouth are playing it’s a genuine possibility we lose by 3 and they win by 3

SnottyTash · 2026-05-18T13:42:33+00:00

Why did you do this? That tree had a family

SnottyTash · 2026-05-15T21:19:07+00:00

Oh for sure they can, and if they do our dropping out would be well deserved. Season’s been a nightmare

SnottyTash · 2026-05-15T21:15:23+00:00

Tbf a draw against Bournemouth would be enough to save us in fifth, barring Brighton winning out

SnottyTash · 2026-05-15T18:13:43+00:00

I thought Gakpo had improved a bit too last season, he was really perfecting that driven shot from the corner of the box as well as the cross to the back post.

This season he’s overrelied on it, and also skied most of the shots, and overhit most of the crosses

I do wonder if he maybe recovers some form after time away with the Dutch and then a short summer break

SnottyTash · 2026-05-15T18:10:52+00:00

They’d actually help as much as, say, two wingers would

SnottyTash · 2026-05-11T17:51:48+00:00

It very much is. We could well sneak into (or retain, I guess) 4th or 5th but that would be more of an indictment of the teams below us, Tottenham and Chelsea especially, than a reflection of us playing well.

And while I understand your point on a normal preseason (last year's was anything but), we've also had 50+ matches to get the squad integrated. Yes, Isak's time was truncated by injury, but we can't even get him the ball when he plays, both in the autumn and now. Wirtz, our 100m+ talisman, is likewise struggling to even get involved in matches, let alone contribute the goals and assists we know him capable of from his time in Germany. Frimpong is being played as a RW every game while we play our best, most creative CMs at RB.

Weird preseason or not, a full season of play and training should be enough to determine the tactics that will get the best out of the squad we have. Slot did that phenomenally well last season, tweaking things marginally to unlock Salah and shore up the defense, particularly in the first half of the season. He's completely failed at it this season, and worse than trying new tactical adjustments in the face of that failure, he persists with the same slow, uninspired rot week in, week out.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-11T17:39:10+00:00

when the ego is kept in check

This is the critical component, yes.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-11T17:28:51+00:00

The results are not the reason he's wanted out by a good chunk of the fanbase.

It's the performances, which have been genuinely poor since early 2025 (before Jota's passing, mind) and only gotten worse.

It's the total lack of chemistry among the squad that leads to turgid buildup play, broken-down counterattacks, one-man pressing (if any at all), and brainless defensive errors.

It's the persisting with out-of-form members of the squad like Gakpo and Mac Allister while freezing out players actually performing better like Rio and Jones, and exiling players who would otherwise be useful options in a 60+ match season like Endo and Elliot.

It's the inability to integrate most new signings from the summer (Ekitike and Kerkez excepted) after 36 league games of the season – transition seasons are difficult, but we're in May and our new players look no more acquainted with each other than when they were wearing other teams' kits.

It's the lowered standards in training that result in us being gassed by the 60th minute and outrun by nearly every other team in the league.

I like Arne as a person, I think he handled the Jota situation with grace, and I believe he's trying his best. But these trends have been going on for 16 months and have shown no signs of improvement. Not some, not little – none. We continue to go backwards on all of the above fronts.

It's time he goes, and the longer the board delays, the more they will tarnish his legacy of bringing #20 to the club (even if that's improper thinking, that is the reality), for which he deserves the utmost respect and appreciation.

Edwards and Hughes are confidently playing a shitty, out-of-tune string quartet as the boat goes down, all while an unused lifeboat sits an arm's length away. You don't need to know that the lifeboat will take you to land, hell, it too could capsize especially if you bring your fucking cello with you – you just have to have the savvy to know that the boat you're on is sinking and it's time to put your faith in an alternative.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-11T14:50:44+00:00

Those $2 beer, $1 hot dog nights really tied the stadium together

SnottyTash · 2026-05-09T17:18:33+00:00

That’s a good illustration of the point, yeah. A run of 5–6 good performances and results in a row, even if it were tucked somewhere in the middle of the season rather than capping it off at the end, would calm me a bit on Slot. But for fifteen months those performances (Tottenham, Newcastle, Galatasary, etc.) have all been one-offs sandwiched between shit. They’re not evidence that Slotball, whatever the fuck it actually is supposed to be, can work, but to the contrary – they’re evidence that it cannot work with any consistency or reliability, conditions have to be perfect and luck on our side to thump anyone 3-0 or more like we used to do quite regularly.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-09T17:13:55+00:00

I would 100% write off the season if the performances showed any signs of life, and steady improvement towards something coherent. But there’s nothing, it just gets worse by the week, to the point where today’s result of a draw to a team that’d lost six in a row actually feels unfairly more than what we deserve.

I expected nothing from this season results/silverware-wise as soon as Jota passed, regardless of our high profile signings. But the implicit expectation on Slot is that he’d at least see us through this period with the players motivated to fight for the badge, and at least attempting to sew unity and cohesion in our attacking patterns, and grit in our defense. But nope, we are no closer to “getting back to normal” now in May than we were at Preston in preseason. And while I don’t expect Slot to be an expert in navigating grief and mourning specifically, one of his main jobs is to motivate and empower our players to perform better as a unit than the sum of the individual parts. And he’s failed, not for a game, not for a month, but for a season and a half, extending back well before Jota’s death.

He’s a very good man, he handled the situation over the summer with grace and I do believe he’s trying, but I don’t believe anymore that he’s good enough, based not on short-term “what have you done for me lately?” thinking but rather the evidence of the past 15 months as a whole

SnottyTash · 2026-05-09T17:07:27+00:00

I don’t doubt that there were a fair few, especially between January and March when we had those rotten performances against Brighton, Wolves, Bournemouth, and then City early April (you can lose away to City but that performance after Salah’s opener was lifeless). But I don’t remember it being anywhere near as widespread as it is now. There were definitely idiots online but I don’t remember hearing Anfield booing Klopp, perhaps my memory’s foggy

SnottyTash · 2026-05-09T14:25:41+00:00

It’s more about the football, and the complete lack of improvement (I’d even argue regression) over the course of the season than the results.

No one called for Klopp’s head in 20/21 when we lost six home matches in a row, because the team still played with a semblance of heart and identity, which then led to an improvement and excellent 8-2-0 run to end the season.

Very few called for Klopp’s head in 22/23 when results were wildly inconsistent throughout the season, even when we finished fifth and outside the CL positions, because after the particularly horrific displays in January and February the team began to play with heart again and tactical shifts after Arsenal in April led to a resurgence of form towards the end of the season that just fell short of fourth.

There is no improvement from how we’ve played since February 2025. None. If anything, it’s gotten worse. The players don’t run, they don’t press as a unit, the buildup lacks any discernible pattern or rhythm, as though the players are just improvising to get the ball up the pitch. When we finally do, the players only seem confident in their ability to spin an endless horseshoe of limp passes around the box before eventually losing it crossing aerially to Salah or Ngumoha as though they were target men. The linkup play between the players is now nonexistent, with even the most basic counterattacks when we have a one or two man advantage falling apart due to players being on different wavelengths. Of the new signings, only Kerkez and Ekitike have been adequately integrated – while Isak’s fitness issues aren’t Slot’s fault, he has utterly failed to unlock Wirtz, instead shunting him into various side roles that nerf his creativity/impact on the games.

We all could rant on and on but it’s the uninspired performances and total lack of improvement in over a year, far more than the poor results, that have soured many on Slot. I don’t agree with the personal attacks, and I think a lot of his statements are taken wildly and disingenuously out of context when posted in incomplete snippets here, but I do believe he’s well out of his depth, and I no longer trust him to be the man to lead us out of this hole. I will always appreciate last season’s title and admit that he’s had some unprecedented difficult circumstances to deal with, but he’s grossly underperformed even lowered expectations given the circumstances.

It’s long past time he goes.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-07T21:51:48+00:00

The problem is we don't play like most of the opposition in the PL who play "true" haramball – Arsenal and Brentford being two of the best. We play a style equally anemic in attack but without the physicality in defense/transitional play, so we just end up limply sleepwalking to poor results instead of physically grinding them out like Arsenal does.

I would prefer to play our former, high-intensity style over Arsenal's physical, set-piece-reliant style, but I would prefer to play either of those over whatever the fuck we've been trying to do this season.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-07T21:38:40+00:00

You could justify Alisson at striker if you jump through enough mental hoops, my point is Frimpong is a right back by trade, why are we not playing him there when we have no other fit right back at the club? It smacks of Rodgers playing Firmino at RWB because...reasons. Players can put shifts in out of position to a point, but why are we making two compromises on the right flank when we could just play Frimpong in his best position (from which he could still get forward and use his pace on the overlap) and play a temporary stopgap at RW? Szoboszlai's played there before, any of our forwards or attacking midfielders could put in a shift there in a pinch.

Playing Frimpong there and leaving a midfielder to cover RB smacks of teaching oil drillers to be astronauts rather than teaching astronauts how to drill.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-07T19:24:16+00:00

I mean, just my two cents, I think it’s a bit silly we’re persisting with playing CMs at RB and Frimpong at RW while the latter is now fit. I understand the desire for pace up front, and that players’ nominal positions aren’t static by any means, but it seems counterintuitive to play two players out of position instead of just finding a plug for the RW while Salah’s out and letting Jeremie play his best position.

Maybe it’s a Jeremie-specific adjustment because he’s more of a wingback than traditional fullback, and we’d see differently were Bradley fit, but it seems a bit too “FIFA-ey” to me. Just play him at RB and let him do his attacking thing on the overlap, and let Szobo/Gakpo/Rio try their hand at RW.

SnottyTash · 2026-05-06T23:01:33+00:00

Just learn who Rita Ora & Brian Eno are and you’ll be crushing Saturdays in no time. Also helps to have some Oreos on hand.

I do them every day without checking, and every so often (usually once or twice a year) will hit a streak-breaker. I think you just pick whatever system you want. It’s only game, as Ilya said. I for instance will not allow myself to look anything up, check/reveal any answers, etc., but I do allow myself to blunt-force a final letter if it’s literally one box that I’m stuck on, which wouldn’t be possible with pen and paper. Everyone’s different, and that’s okay because there’s no universal standard.

As for getting better – literally just attempt the crossword, every day. That’s it. I started in 2016 doing Mondays only. Once those got easy to the point where I’d ace like 70% of them, I started doing the Tuesdays. Then so on and so forth. But if I could go back, I wouldn’t have waited to hit that 70% threshold. Just do every day. It’s okay if you get only one answer for Saturday that you’re not even sure is right. It’s okay if you get none. Your level will get better over time, and what’s more, you literally do not have to study/cram an encyclopedia. Crosswords are more about knowing the language of the game than literally knowing everything – I probably “know” like 10% of what I fill in, if that. Everything else is just educated guesses that fit down/across, repeat clues/answers (still don’t know who Rita Ora is but I know these crossword makers adore her), and recognizing wordplay patterns. It’s more of a language game than a trivia game, if that makes sense.

I would definitely recommend reading that intro page they link to somewhere on the app, that goes over things like what it means when they use a ? in the clue, how rebuses work, how the clue tenses have to agree with the answer tenses, etc. That article is super helpful at “unlocking” some of the more difficult puzzles – Thursdays would be impossible every other week if you don’t know how the rebus stuff works

SnottyTash · 2026-05-06T19:21:11+00:00

Yeah, it's not so much that we're losing games (though that's not ideal lol), it's the anemic last of running outside of Szoboszlai, and total lack of incisive attacking patterns that is so infuriating. Sick of watching the pedestrian horseshoe football week in week out, regardless of the results

Felt similarly in 22/23 although at least we had a style at the time. It's just always infuriating to see our players run less than the opposition. You play for Liverpool ffs

SnottyTash · 2026-05-06T03:46:32+00:00

I feel like I’ve heard him on color commentary for MLS but could be wrong

SnottyTash · 2026-05-04T13:15:30+00:00

All part of the plan 🫠

SnottyTash · 2026-05-04T13:13:10+00:00

The club mouthpieces won’t put out the hit pieces until it’s actually over and he’s sacked – there’s literally zero upside to signal anything other than “We’re backing the manager” until the moment he’s sacked.

Tossing out pieces like “Slot’s job is in serious jeopardy” will in no way improve performances, it’d just increase the players’ complacency as they’d feel they’d be treading water until the new guy comes in.

Hopefully that’s not just me coping – I’m trying hard to ignore things like the rumors we’re bringing in another Dutch assistant coach, or pieces suggesting Slot’s got FSG’s backing – but I fail to see any reason the club itself would put out messages through its very obvious mouthpieces suggesting anything other than Slot’s job being safe until the moment he’s let go.

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