By George Rostron
After yet another string of disappointing results for the Reds, there are questions about whether Arne Slot’s side is a shadow of its previously described ‘mentality monsters’.
Since the recent international break, Arne Slot’s side crashed out of the quarter-final of the FA Cup, losing 4-0 to Manchester City, and lost convincingly in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final 2-0 against Paris Saint-Germain. The reaction in-game and post-game of the FA cup clash from the players and the setup against PSG signalled a worrying trait for the team. As the number of losses currently stands at 16 in all competitions, with still a minimum of 8 games to play, it’s fair to argue that Arne Slot and his men are struggling with their mentality.
Credit: City Xtra
After a two-week break for internationals, excitement and optimism built for the FA Cup clash, and despite playing away from home, Liverpool started the game against Manchester City promisingly. Nevertheless, that faded quickly, and after Manchester City grew into the game, they eventually went 1-0 up through a penalty from Norway’s Erling Haaland. As the camera panned around the Liverpool players, heads were dropped, socks were being pulled up, and blank stares were on display. Falling 1-0 behind has been a persistent issue throughout the season, and when this Liverpool side has gone into half-time losing, which is 8 in the Premier League, they haven’t won once. Effort and willingness to turn the game around appeared to have evaporated on the pitch, and the team came into half-time 2-0 down. Disappointingly, to no surprise, the trend of not winning when losing at half-time continued, and in the blink of an eye, they found themselves 4-0 down. From here, Manchester City found it easy to control the game, and Liverpool looked like they couldn’t wait for the final whistle to go. The skipper, Virgil van Dijk, commented after the game that “you shouldn’t give up and that’s maybe, at a certain point, what happened”. A telling insight inside the dressing room that when the going gets tough, as it has at numerous points this season, the players have no belief or determination to step up and turn things around.
Credit: Liverpool.com
Moments after the final whistle, Dominik Szoboszlai was pictured shrugging his shoulders at the fans, which can be interpreted as attitude to the understandably almost empty away end. The Hungarian midfielder spoke recently about fans leaving early, understanding the frustration, but commenting, “We need them…we need you guys”. It’s difficult to justify why the fans, who dedicate money and time to see the team every week up and down the country, shouldn’t feel the right to leave early after countless poor performances. You can’t help but feel his anger is pointed at the wrong people, and it feels like a poorly directed act of frustration with an implied refusal on all the player's part to direct it at themselves. A further indication that within the dressing room, there is a lack of drive to assess themselves for more positive outcomes. While it’s difficult to criticise Szoboszlai, with him being by far the standout player for Liverpool this season, it’s unfortunate and a sign of deeper issues within the dressing room that he decided to do that in that moment.
Moving away from the Manchester City game, and looking at Liverpool holistically over the season, signs of Liverpool moving further and further away from ‘mentality monsters’ have been growing. At the beginning of the season, Liverpool found themselves coming out on the right end of last-minute goals and were praised for going right up until the end, albeit with a bit of luck. You can’t rely on this every game, though, and after a handful of positive results at the start of the season, a horrible run of form hit. Since then, consistency has been nonexistent, and on numerous occasions Liverpool instead found themselves on the wrong end of comebacks and last-minute goals, conceding 8 times beyond the 90 minutes. This is the most in a single campaign for the club. This indicates complacency and an inability to kill off games. Investigating the reasons for this, it could be that the players think the game is won based on the assurance of winning the Premier League last season, or it could just be down to unfortunate individual errors. However, what’s certain is that this pattern has allowed opposition teams to capitalise on the questionable effort from the players, always giving them hope, and never allowing our own support to feel comfortable in a game.
Credit: Evening Standard
Going into the game against PSG, Florian Wirtz, in his pre-match conference, disagreed with Virgil van Dijk's comments and claimed Liverpool “still tried to create chances and turn the game around”. Should this be taken as an indication that the mentality is still strong within the group? I don’t think so. These comments join a long list of false dawns and empty motivational phrases from the players, but as we can all see, nothing has changed.
It’s important to look beyond the players, though. Let’s say they believe these comments are true, then the mentality of the manager, Arne Slot, needs to be put in question. There is no better example of his current state of mind than the way he set up against PSG. He played a five at the back for the first time in his Liverpool career, a clear indication that he turned up to the Parc Des Princes looking for a draw. This went out the window after 11 minutes, after Desire Doue’s deflected shot looped over Giorgi Mamardashvili. Yet, he persisted with his plan. To no surprise, Liverpool created nothing, not even registering a shot in the first half. After PSG went 2-0 up, it became, as he described, “survival mode”, so still he persisted with his set-up until the final whistle. On this occasion, the Liverpool players appeared to work hard for the majority of the game, even running more than their opponent, PSG, which has been rare this season. They played man-to-man marking, and you could see the players sprinting to keep up with their man, but fundamentally, the system was wrong. Not only was it a negative, but despite the players working hard, gaps were still appearing all over the pitch, and Liverpool were lucky to come away only 2-0 down. This game clearly signifies Arne Slot’s current state of mind: damage limitation. It was unlike Liverpool Football Club, and you can’t help but think this negative approach bleeds down to the players. Poor results, poor performances, and negative approaches are creating a tangible disconnect between the manager, team, and fans.
Looking over the season and understanding the current state of mind evidenced by the manager and plays, I place my pin firmly in the corner of mentality mice. You can’t help but wonder if a change in the manager role, either permanent or interim, could ignite a new passion and motivation within the players and fans, leading to a positive end to the season.
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