There’s this lazy shout that Liverpool “don’t have patterns” or that Arne Slot is making it up as he goes along. I don’t buy it. You can see the idea pretty clearly, the problem is we’re not carrying it out with enough conviction or synchronicity.
The core of it looks like press-baiting with purpose: keep the ball, tempt the opposition to jump, then zip it through the lines when they’ve over-committed. In theory it’s tidy. In practice, right now, we often take one touch too many, or we don’t take the brave pass early enough, and the window slams shut.
The plan is to move them, then hurt them
When it works, it’s quite simple. You circulate possession, you invite the press, you pull their shape out of position, then you punch into the space they’ve just abandoned. That can mean finding the wide man early, or slipping someone in behind, or going through the middle if the lane opens.
The frustration is the split-second hesitation. That’s the bit you feel in the stands and at home: everyone can see the run, everyone can see the gap, but the ball arrives a beat late, so it becomes a tackle, a block, or just another recycle. Nothing “wrong” with the concept, just not sharp enough to make teams pay.
Not everyone’s reading the same page yet
It also looks like the group aren’t always speaking the same football language at the same time. One lad checks short, another spins in behind, and the passer hesitates because the picture has changed. Or the runner goes, but the ball carrier dithers, and suddenly it’s gone. That’s not tactics failing, that’s timing and trust failing.
And if the idea is to shift some of the focus from the wings to more central progression, that takes a bit of rewiring as well. Players who’ve built habits over seasons don’t become automatic overnight. You can see why it’s taking longer than any of us would like.
The press from the front still feels like a work in progress
Truth is, I’m not the biggest fan of press-baiting as a default, especially when it’s paired with a front press that comes and goes. There have been spurts where it’s looked much better, and you can feel the whole side lift when the first line actually bites.
But it’s still wrong to pretend Slot hasn’t got an idea, or that we’re incapable of changing the rhythm within games. We are changing it. We’re just doing it a bit badly at the moment.
The saving grace is obvious: we’re still winning while we’re not at full flow. If the timing tightens up and the off-ball movements become second nature, this can look a lot more fluid very quickly.
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