There’s a phrase that does the rounds after flat results: “We played okay.” And honestly, I can’t stand it. “Okay” doesn’t win you away games in this league. It might keep you from getting embarrassed, but it rarely gets you three points, and that’s the whole point of turning up.

The bigger worry for me is the feel of our football at the minute. It’s slow. Ponderous, even. You can call it control if you want, but control without threat is just a long wait for something to go wrong. And when it does, you’re left chasing a game with legs that already look heavy.

Being hard to beat can’t be the only plan

I get the idea of tightening things up. Every Liverpool fan has watched us get done in transition and thought, “Right, sort that.” But making us harder to play through shouldn’t come at the expense of creating chances. It’s not an either/or, and it never has been.

Plenty of sides manage to be compact and still play with tempo. Plenty of managers find a balance between structure and edge. That’s what top-level coaching looks like: you don’t fix one leak by opening another. You don’t trade your bite for a clean shirt.

Fixing one issue and creating another

My frustration with Arne Slot so far is that it feels like we’ve been shifting problems around rather than solving them. You can see what he’s trying to do, but the lingering issues are still there, and now we’ve added a new one: the attack looking like it’s wading through mud.

It’s all a bit too measured, too safe, and at times it doesn’t look like we’re playing to win. The Premier League doesn’t reward caution. Not when the margins are this thin, and not when away grounds smell hesitation.

Fitness, rotation, and the cramp question

Then there’s the physical side of it. If the slower build and reduced intensity is meant to keep players fresh over the season, you have to ask: how’s that working out when we’re seeing lads cramping after 75 minutes and struggling to finish games?

On top of that, we’ve got a mention of Wirtz carrying a tight hamstring, while others look like they need rotating. That’s not just about workload, it’s about management. The season is long. You can’t run key players into the ground and still expect sharpness when the match turns.

And yes, I’m starting to worry about the noise after games as well. When the explanations begin to sound familiar, it puts fans on edge. The truth is, Liverpool don’t need excuses. We need solutions, and we need them quickly.

Written by OliRed: 13 January 2026

Tags: efl tactics injury squad