There are two separate Liverpool conversations here, and they both matter. One is about bodies: how long you can carry players who are clearly good enough, but never quite available. The other is about game management: how you can control a match for 80 minutes and still end up clinging on, hearts in mouths, when it should be done.
At some point, availability has to count
You can look at a full-back and see the potential straight away: the athleticism, the timing, the idea of what he could be in a settled side. Then you remember the constant stop-start. It’s the same familiar dread every time someone pulls up, gets a knock, or needs “managing”.
And it’s not just one player either. Gomez is the obvious comparison because we’ve had seasons where he looks like he can be an answer across the back line, then he disappears for long stretches again. It isn’t about writing players off for the sake of it. It’s about the reality of the league now: margins are tight, and you can’t be constantly rebuilding your back four on the fly if you want any sort of rhythm.
Continuity matters. Not as a buzzword, but because it’s how you defend your box properly, how you hold a line, how you get communication right without thinking. If your “first-choice” unit barely plays together, you end up living off emergency defending and last-ditch moments.
Control for 80 minutes, then the mood shifts
On the day itself, it felt like Liverpool had control for a long spell. Yes, the red card changes the whole texture of a game, and you’d expect control when you’re up a man. But even so, once the second went in it should have been a stroll home. That’s the frustration: it never quite becomes easy.
There’s also a fair point about tempo. The slow, turgid spells can make a comfortable position feel edgy because you’re not putting the match away. When you play in that gear for too long, one messy moment can flip everything.
Not everything is on Arne Slot
People love pinning everything on the manager, but some moments are just players not doing the basics. If you can’t clear your lines inside your own box, that’s not a tactical blueprint failing. That’s decision-making, calmness, and doing your job.
And it’s worth saying out loud: if this ends 2-0 and everyone shrugs at it as “not vintage”, the noise is completely different. The last 10 to 15 minutes are on the players. There should be enough experienced heads to slow it down, win a couple of fouls, keep the ball, and kill the atmosphere.
Finally, it’s hard not to compare it with matches where we’ve been properly battered physically. Whatever the faults here, at least Liverpool tried to play football. The challenge now is making that control mean something at the end of games, not just in the middle of them.
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