It Can’t All Sit With Arne

The conversation around Liverpool at the minute feels a bit one-note: if it isn’t working on the pitch, it must be Arne. And yes, the manager always carries the can for the style, the shape, and whether it looks like a proper plan or a collection of ideas.

But I can’t shake the feeling we’re letting others off too easily. If Richard Hughes is involved in appointing the medical and fitness set-up, supporting the coach, and shaping who comes in and out, then some of what we’re watching has to come back to the wider build, not just what’s written on the tactics board.

When the style and the squad don’t match

The biggest red flag is alignment. It’s one thing to ask players to learn new roles. That happens with every change of manager. It’s another thing entirely when the manager appears to be leaning on specific profile types and the squad doesn’t really have them.

Take full-backs. If you want them sitting in or stepping into midfield, that’s a very particular demand. It’s not just “be a bit more cautious” or “underlap more”. It’s a structural choice that shapes everything: the build-up, the rest defence, where your wide threats come from, and how you trap teams when you lose it.

Same in midfield. If the idea needs a tempo-setter, that controller who takes the ball under pressure and decides the speed of the game, you either need to already have one or you need to recruit one. Otherwise you’re asking players to do a job they can only do in flashes, and the whole team ends up playing slightly within itself.

Front line roles: we’ve got talent, but are we balanced?

Up top it’s similar. If the preference is a lone number nine with two proper wide players, then balance matters. Mo is a world-class forward, but he’s always been most dangerous coming in off the right onto his left. If the other side doesn’t naturally stretch the pitch, you can end up a bit narrow, a bit predictable, and far too easy to shepherd away from goal.

And if you’re stocked with more central types, two “first choice nines” and a few lads who want to live between the lines as tens, then it can start to feel like we’re trying to solve the same problem with three different players in the same spaces.

Fitness, intensity, and why it all looks slower

The other worry is physical. Liverpool at our best have played with speed and intensity. Even when the football isn’t perfect, you should still recognise the tempo, the aggression off the ball, the ability to go again.

If the team looks short of that, then it’s not just a coaching issue. It’s conditioning, it’s training load, it’s preparation, it’s the whole performance set-up. Players can know their roles inside out and still look a yard off it, and once that happens the plan stops looking like a plan.

So yes, Arne will get judged on what we see. That’s the job. But if the tactical idea, recruitment, and fitness work aren’t pulling in the same direction, it’s no surprise the football doesn’t translate into anything coherent.

Written by Hugo Spritz: 11 January 2026