Stop scapegoating: this squad was built to compete

There’s a strange habit that kicks in the moment results go a bit sour: we all start looking around for someone to pin it on. Anyone will do. The sporting director, the recruitment lads, the fella with the spreadsheet, the bloke who negotiated a fee three months ago. Truth is, some of what’s bitten us this season is the sort of thing you just can’t plan for.

At the start of the campaign it didn’t feel like Liverpool were walking into it short. The spine looked strong, there looked to be options in most areas, and the idea was we’d have enough depth to manage a long year. When that doesn’t translate into points, the conversation immediately jumps to “who failed?”, rather than “what’s actually happened on the pitch?”.

Centre-back depth wasn’t the obvious weak spot

Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, in theory, is a title-winning partnership. Behind them, Joe Gomez has been around the block and Jarell Quansah gave us minutes last season. Plenty of supporters were unconvinced by Quansah anyway, so if the club chose to move on and replace him, you can at least see the logic.

What you can’t do is pretend it’s straightforward to foresee a season-ending injury in a new lad’s first game, or a dramatic dip in form from someone you’re relying on. That’s not “poor planning”, that’s football being chaotic.

Injuries and availability can flip a season

Same goes for the wider squad. If a player was generally available last season and then suddenly racks up multiple setbacks in a short spell, that’s not a crystal ball failure. It just wrecks continuity. You can’t build rhythm, you can’t settle partnerships, and you end up chasing fixes with one hand tied behind your back.

And once you’re patching line-ups, you start seeing knock-on issues: pressing distances get sloppy, transitions become a mess, and the side looks less than the sum of its parts. That’s where coaching and management start to matter more than transfer talk.

Accountability has to reach the dugout too

If the argument is that the squad has “two quality players in every position”, then it’s fair to ask why previously reliable starters aren’t performing. That’s on the manager as well. Arne Slot can’t be absolved if the tools are there but the use of them isn’t working.

What I don’t get is the obsession with Hughes and Edwards as the first heads on the block. Half the time people arguing for sackings couldn’t tell you their remit, never mind judge it. And the whole “silver tongued charlatan” stuff aimed at Hughes? On what basis? Also, if you’re negotiating deals, being silver tongued is sort of the point.

Supporters can be angry without turning every rough patch into a witch-hunt. Sometimes it’s not one villain. It’s injuries, form, and decisions, all piling up at once.

Written by Sean Dundee: 30 January 2026