Open Floor Friday

America's Anfield returns as Matt and Jonny discuss a variety of topics:

• Can Liverpool's struggles this season be explained at least in part by player workload?
• Is European competition really a major contributor to Liverpool's poor away form? What about Liverpool's performance at Anfield?
• Will Edwards and Hughes really allow Xabi Alonso to go to Chelsea?

Plus much more!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to America's Anfield, a Liverpool FC podcast brought to you by American Brothers Matt and Johnny. From the heart of the U.S. to the cop, we're talking all things reds every week.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome in, everyone. You're listening to America's Anfield. We're back, Johnny and I, to record more amazing content about our favorite struggling team, Liverpool Football Club, who come off a very disappointing performance at home against Chelsea for those who watched, but I think very on brand for this team this season. You know, if you are struggling out there as a football club, if you are in a poor run of form, if you're potentially going to get relegated, if you're on your third manager of the season, if you are employing somebody as a manager who has no business being your manager, and you need to get a result this season, might I welcome you to Anfield? Not even just playing Liverpool, like come play at Anfield. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Work for Spurs, work for Chelsea. So what am I doing right now, Reddy? Warm on my hands. You know why? Because we're a dumpster fire. It's great. That's right. See, that's good. That's good. This is what the people want, you know? This is what they want, yeah. Right up top, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Um later today, we're recording this on a Friday morning, actually. So so no alcohol, obviously, because we don't have a problem. We're drinking coffee.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

That's right. Um normal people.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Liverpool will go to play away at Aston Villa. Um, two teams kind of sparring back and forth for the honor of finishing fourth or fifth in the Premier League this season. Or sixth. Who knows? Or sixth. One of the things I thought about that we could have done that would have been great, is what about an in-game interview with Harvey Elliott? I mean, he's not doing anything.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah. You know, he's he's probably at home, right? They're not even gonna bring him on the bench.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Well, I don't even think he's allowed to play. Not that he does play for Villa. To be clear, he doesn't.

unknown 2:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Um but I don't think he's allowed to because of the terms of the loan. So um so anyway, we'll see how that game goes. I don't really have uh high hopes, to be honest. Um, but you know, it's a chance to watch our favorite team, so I'll tune in and and with very low expectations, see what happens. Um, but Johnny, you know, we did the the slot conversation last time, so I don't want to be redundant and have that again. Um but you know, there are plenty of other things that we can talk about. There's no big topic per se. So kind of thought this could be an open floor Friday kind of thing where we can talk about things that are irritating us, things that are interesting for potentially the summer, uh, whatever kind of you know sparks our interest. So I gave you enough warning. Do you want to start off? Like, is there something you wanted to kick off with here? And and then we can just go back and forth and see where it takes us. It could be terrible, it could be glorious. Let's see.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I would love that. I have so many things that I mean, they're and they're not long takes either, but so many things uh brewing around in the old brain, the old noggin. So uh in no particular order, let's pretend, let's pretend for funsies that City win out, Arsenal goes to Palace last game of the year, palace win. Do you snap up Glasner just because we love him so much after that? Despite the whole Mark Gay saga over their summer and winter, your thoughts? No. Um I want him. He's my hero. That happened to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

What percent of that was actually true? Maybe five. This is is this satire? Is that what we are now? Um so first of all, he doesn't seem like we're gonna replace slot if you're kind of reading the tea leaves for anybody. So I wouldn't replace him for the guy who's I mean, if you look at the table, and Palace are one of those weird teams who play almost everybody tough, especially if you're a top team, except for didn't really play that well against City a couple days ago. Um we're not gonna replace him for a guy whose team is like 15th in the table. That that would not go over well with me. FA Cup or no FA Cup, I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

True. Yeah, that's well, that's true. Um okay, next, who wins the FA Cup, Chelsea or City?

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Probably City. And I uh I just looked at their run-in and I think that it's gonna screw them. I mean, they've already kind of they've already had their hiccup at Everton. Everton, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

But they have Bourmouth away.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

But they have Burnmouth away like three days later. They played them Tuesday, and then they got to turn around again and play Saturday. And so to me, that's just way, way, way too much. Um that Burnmouth game has drop points written all over it. Um that's a team that still has an outside chance for for Europe, right? Ironically enough, and the managers still leaving afterwards, which is kind of weird. It's like, what an achievement if Burnmouth finishes in the Europa League and then he just bows out.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

I mean, yeah. So, you know, go out on top the George Costanza way, you know. So uh okay, so I have that. Um I'm still I'm still hoping and praying for Mighty Burnley to get a result uh on is it Sunday, Monday, Monday, probably. Uh Monday, and you're not going to stop it. No, it's gonna it's happening. Come on, it's happening. It's happening. How dare you? Uh okay, so let's go into some of these things then. Um, Kanate. Seems like that was uh almost done deal. And now I'm hearing and reading reports that like it's getting awkward. Is is something stalling there? It sounds like we're stalling more than he is. Are we trying to um I don't know, slow things down so we can find other people? Your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Well, he's had a rough season, okay? And this kind of like fits into something I want to talk about later, but he has had a rough season, so it's really hard with the recency bias of how he's played to really have a strong, like, oh my God, like what's gonna happen if he leaves, and and we really need him back because he just hasn't been that type of player this season, you know. Um now it's one more person to replace in a summer that's looking potentially like really volatile, you know, with all the guys that could leave. You throw Allison on that list, which we talked about last time, and you already got Rabbo leaving, you've got Salah leaving. Um, there could be some churn in the midfield. So I certainly wouldn't want to have to go get yet another center back. Oh, and then and then Joe Gomez. I'm imagining he's probably gone. So, you know, I would rather re-sign him, but we need to manage him better next season. And part of that was injury related, I understand, but we need to manage him better next season. We need to manage a lot of guys better. That's gonna be a point I'm gonna bring up in a minute. But like if we're gonna play him as much as we've played him this season, number one, he's an injury risk, right? He's he's had plenty of kind of you know, soft tissue injuries in his career. Um and number two, um, you know, depending on what we want to pay him, like he's gotta be more akin to the guy I saw in the 22 Champions League final than the guy we saw this season.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yep. No, I agree. And there's still shots of, like you said, we're gonna we want some continuity. That would be helpful, especially with guys leaving, but it would also be nice to uh count on him more and manage him better uh in the ways that he performs. So I agree. Um we can get into the weeds of more player talk that I was thinking through, but maybe maybe you have some other places you'd like to go first.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, let's go ahead and and kind of go into what I was teasing there for a minute. So let's go back to the end of last season. Okay. So we're just refresher for everybody. Liverpool go and get thoroughly outplayed by Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final. Um, we have some, I would call it compared to like earlier in the season, sketchier performances where we we looked tired, and we brought this up in the podcast a lot. We were like, hey, is this fatigue? Specifically with guys like Gravenberg, you know, who had played a ton of minutes. Um and then the season prior with Klopp had not. And just wondering, hey, if the team is run down, you know, if you remember slot did not rotate, we would be teasing, like, hey, do you remember that Harvey Elliott and and Endo are allowed to play? And that you can sub them in, that's legal, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Before the 85th minute.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yep. Exactly. So um fast forward to this season, okay? And I think you've still seen a lot of that. Like, like when we're trying to put our finger on it, we're saying, hey, you know, is it Joda? Is it uh the fact that we're not training a lot, which has come out, you know, that we're kind of taking a lot of days off. Like, right, what what is it that's going on with this team where we've really lost our identity in some ways, but like also we've just lost intensity. I think that's the biggest thing that I've noticed. You know, what whether you're talking about the way we press or anything else, it just looks flat, you know. And so I'm gonna reference this for some people. There is an account on on X uh Twitter, Simon Brundish is his name, and he wrote a really interesting article about load management for our squad this season. Okay, and there's a lot of ways we can take this, so but I just want to throw this out there. So a couple things that popped off to me. Number one, uh Virgil van Dyke. He has played in all competitions, so this includes the national team over 5,500 minutes this season. He's played a full 90 50 times. Okay. He's 34, reminder, he's not 24. And I bring this up because I've started to see in some pockets, and we've said this too a little bit, like questioning his leadership, you know, on the field, and like, hey, what's going on with him? He hasn't been at his his peak. Well, you know, and I brought this up and you've echoed it. It's because he's playing all the time. That's got to be a major, major part of this. You know what I mean? Like, I think not just physically, but mentally, the grind of having to show up and play all the time, day in and day out. And then when you go on a quote unquote international break, it's the same thing. He's gonna go and he's gonna play 90 for the Netherlands, right? And then the season's gonna be over. And what competition is coming up over the summer? Oh, the World Cup. And then he's gonna play in every minute of every match there, and we'll see how far they go, right? But it's not just him. Dominic Zabasli, back-to-back seasons, career highs in minutes. So go reference the article. I don't want to steal his thunder. Um, but he's also played a full 90 46 times, okay? That is even more, in my opinion, egregious than Van Dyke because of his position. Like, can you imagine playing center midfield, especially the type of ball that Dom plays, like really aggressive, all over the field, pressing. This is a candidate to turn into Fabinho in a couple seasons if we're not careful. You can't keep that up. Okay. Also on that list, career highs in minutes, Ravenberg, coming off of last season where he played a ton. McAllister. Oh, interesting. He's been sort of a whipping boy. What happened to McAllister? Well, maybe where I'm going with this, maybe a common thread for this team is they're a bunch of them are run into the ground. And that is why they're not performing at optimal levels. And the way that we're the second point is the way that we're trying to counteract that is to instead of rotate more, instead of like use any squad depth or bench, it's to not train. And I just find that laughable, man. And like, look, I'm not a top-level manager, but that just seems so backwards to me. I'm gonna play you 90, Johnny, every game. And to make up for that, we're not going to train. Even if we have major structural or systemic issues with our team, we're not gonna train. So let me stop there. What's your reaction to a lot of those stats? I'm guessing when I was watching you, like, you weren't like shocked. So I'm guessing none, none of it surprised you. But like, you know, I guess, you know, what's your reaction? And then second, if we keep the manager, none of this is gonna change next season. So how did how does that get better?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Right. That's well, there's a there's a multi-tiered concern there in the way I think about it. One is the fact that the way that global football is going, I don't know that that's getting better. You hear a lot of players advocating against more tournaments, more minutes, those sorts of things. And you're starting to see a lot more prolific injuries, even as we lead up to the World Cup. So, you know, whether it's um Xavi Simmons just tore his knee and the Achilles with Ekitique, and like you're seeing more, or the what's the name of the defender for um uh Tottenham. Uh so you're seeing all these issues kind of leading up uh for lots of guys. And so that's not gonna change. You're gonna see international like international duty for you know competing on four fronts if you're in the EPL uh summer stuff. If you win the Champions League, you got lots of duties in the summer with you know now Club World Cup on. What is that every two or is that every four as well? Every two.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

So it's well, I don't know. It might be every four.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

I'll look it up. Hold on. I think it's opposite opposite two of World Cup, if if memory serves me. But um so you have that, but you have you know other things that are happening as well. Um, if you succeed. I think that the difficult part, if I think big picture is if you're a competitive top four team in any league, the majority of your players are going to play both league, all your fronts, and international. It'd be really odd for you to have you know a full squad starting 11 or more that just are like, I'm not even getting a look internationally. So I'm not sure what you do there because I I would say by and large, guys want to play international for their country almost as much or succeed maybe almost as much, if not more, than the team. Means a lot. So you have that tension. Uh, but then also, I and I don't know exactly what to do with this, but if you're trying to compete for a spot on the starting 11, this is different than like a Virgil van Dyke who, you know, at this point in his career is probably dead on lock to play or has been the last you know, three, four, five, six years. But some guys are like, hey, I don't I don't have that advantage. So anytime there's a friendly, whether it's meaningful, quote unquote, or not, they're gonna want to play so they can you know actually nail on their spot in the national team. The reason I'm saying that is sometimes you saw this with Arsenal recently. Uh a lot of their guys are like, oh no, all of them can't go play international, they're hurt. And so then they pull out and so they can you know train for their club because they're just playing friendlies. And most of those guys, whether it be you know Saliba, Gabrielle, Raya, etc., they're they're making their national team, assuming they're not hurt. So you see some of that, uh, but then you I guess that that's that's one side of things. Like just football's going that way. I'm not sure what to do if you want to be a competitive team, other than have a bunch of nubbies uh as your squad players that that don't get a look internationally. Uh, but then the other side of things is our manager uh is one where I would say this in order for us to manage load like you're describing, we would have to get nailed on starting 11 type trusted players, which would cost us a billion dollars this summer, next summer, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Or he trusts his bench now, one of the two, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

But he but he doesn't. So like yeah, he's not gonna play the likes of like Rio and and those types of players in the in the same way, and again, I'm not comparing, it just is what it is, and in the same ways that Klopp would, at least in like lower tier, early on, FA, care about, etc., uh tournament games, or even in you know, like weird home games against teams we should beat. Um, he didn't trust the kids.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And and this is what makes, if you think about it, just load management, this is what makes the whole Curtis Jones thing so bizarre. I mean, he just doesn't play very much for weeks and weeks and weeks, and it's like, well, you're meanwhile, you're running Grav, you're running Dom, you're running Mac into the ground. You know what I mean? And it just doesn't make any sense. So, and clearly you did trust him. Like, we understand you don't like Endo. We understand he's not gonna play.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Or Elliot is. You know what I mean? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

We we get it. We're like, I'm not gonna come on a podcast and waste time being like, why isn't Chiesa playing? Like, we understand that ship is sailed, but you know what I'm saying? Like that that case in particular is weird.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah. Well, and then this does dovetail into like the types of players we're looking to get. Like I was doing a little research uh past couple days thinking through, you know, what do we need? And then what what potentially could be, because they've talked about investing in transition and all this stuff with slot because he's staying. But like I, for example, just as one, I don't really, I know we're looking at defenders, I don't really understand the Grav resigning, and then I hear all this smoke towards Elliot Anderson or Adam Wharton, and I'm like, why? If we're like, unless we're gonna bump Grav up to be more attacking, I don't really understand, unless unless he wants two, like, you know, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 million caliber players per position, and I just don't think we're ever gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

And then I don't know that they play anyway. It begs the question. This is awesome, because I think it's all tied together. It begs the question if we're gonna go get a pricey guy like Warden, okay? Are we keeping everybody else in the midfield? And are we gonna truly rotate? Or do we need to raise funds by selling, you know, Mac or someone like that? Because again, it's just you're just creating the same problem again, because he has shown, Arnie Slot has shown he's not gonna rotate. So, okay. Um, do we just start the clock on you know Wharton's gonna play, you know, 50 games more than that across all competitions, whatever. Um, it also doesn't give you any room to buy any depth to rotate. You know what I mean? So, like, there's this like weird circular reference that's gonna go on within our squad here, because um to me, the answer is squad depth is like a huge hack now. Like you have to have it. And if you look at Arsenal squad, for example, I mean, look, as much as I don't like Arsenal, they have so much more depth that Arteta can use than we do. There are certain positions where maybe it's it's not as good because Yokrez is is frankly not very good. But um, but they have a lot more options at positions uh than we do. And so I think it's a slot thing, but I also think it's a huge thing. Like I think that we this summer, you know, we didn't give slot a lot of really good options on the bench in certain in certain areas. Like right back would be a great example, you know?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Well, yeah. And you know, it's it's sort of a worst-case scenario in the sense of it wasn't the it was sort of a I I don't know what the discussions were, but it seems like it was sort of a a band-aid of sorts in that area that then went as badly as possible given injuries to both the guys that were were gonna you know squatted up back there between Bradley and Frimpong. Um, but I I guess the the other part of that conversation is let me ask you this then, because I I I have a take. I'm curious as to yours. Given the opportunity, I don't know that slot would play some of the guys that are quote unquote depth if he was managing Arsenal. I think you'd be like, hey, Miles Luskelli, like and I'm good. No thanks. Like he's the worst. Or uh, you know, some of the central defender guys, like, you know, in Capier, no, you're dead to me. Or or Califora uh Calafiore or you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

But but and and and again, and and like, you know, this isn't all at slot, but I mean like look, look, man, like you coach in the Premier League. Okay, so compare other leagues too. Like you and I were joking around on the phone that you know, PSG, I'm pretty sure, mutually agreed with another team in their league to like postpone a game so they could get ready for you know their their Champions League game, right? Like that does not happen here, and that's never gonna happen in the Premier League, right? So if you're gonna manage in the Premier League and you want to be competitive in the Premier League, forget Europe for the moment, then you have to assemble a squad where you rotate. You have to do it. You're not gonna get other breaks, you're we're never gonna go down to a thirty four game season. Like things like that are never gonna happen, you know?

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Well And Bundesliga gets a month off, Dutch league gets a month off, like winter. Like, we're not going to do that as well. That's in fact when it gets the most congested, it seems like, in like December and like boxing day. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

And so I don't think the answer is not training. I I think the answer is you have to be able to give guys days off and pull them at 70 and you know, things like that. Like Klopp also, one of the things I thought was interesting that he used to do was the almost like you play a half, you know, 50, something like that, and then you get yanked type thing where you saw guys come in to keep their rhythm, but they only play like 35 or 40. I mean, again, I don't know what the sport science would say, but that that seemed interesting at the time, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Right. Yeah, no, I I mean I I do like that. And I I also don't know the full discussion. So again, this isn't like this is all slots fault, but it seems like there was I'm I'm still, you know, we need probably another another season of this, both between them and sporting director and sort of management to to get a sense for like what is the plan and what is the the way forward. Because it seems like, at least at the at the striker position, we do want to nail down like expensive players per position. Now, maybe that's just it happen happened to be that position because of what was available. I'll be curious to see if we're like, no, actually, I want blah blah blah on the left and on the right and and what have you uh midfield. Like we want Grav and Wharton or Anderson or whomever. Um so we can kind of see that going forward, but it seems like there was at least reported at one point in time the season a squabble over, hey, you need to play other guys and give minutes. There wasn't like trust there, especially like regarding Rio being one of them, is like, hey, seems like Hughes is like, we agreed you're gonna play him, and slot was like, I'm not gonna play him. Now, granted, those conversations were never out in the public. Yeah. But a lot of reported sources of like some tension internally over those things. So yeah, I think you're you're nailed on. I think the the the part that I cannot figure is it's a mixture, at least of me, of uh load management by playing other players, right? By having that deeper bench. But trust doesn't necessarily have to be this guy's a hundred mil signing. Trust can also be like, you know, hey, I, you know, I'm trying to think of a midfielder. Like um, didn't didn't uh Minta play with uh slot at one point in time in the Dutch league. So like getting a guy like that who I mean that's a bad example because he's still gonna be expensive, but like having a cheaper guy that that he trusts, not because he's a hundred mil signing, but because he has some context with him previously, something like that, even if he's young. Um like I said, this isn't all slot.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I mean, if you're gonna spend 250, 300 million dollars on two players, right? Like that is going to come at the expense of depth. And so we decided Isak and Verts are coming in, and that could have been what four or five players instead of two. And we decided to do that. Okay. You know, if you think about this summer, this is where this will get interesting, and then we can move on to something else. Like we need two good position or options at every position, ideally, right? Like you really would would would want to have that because you don't want to have a situation where an injury, one injury, could really derail your season. And so, you know, tell me where we have that. You know what I mean? Like, like anywhere. You know, we we really don't. Like, even at left back now with Rabbo leaving, is Simikas gonna come back from loan and is he gonna be your left back option? Okay. Right back, I mean, we all agree that Frim Pong's not a right back. Okay, Gomez is injury prone. Who's your other right back? He doesn't trust Calvin Ramsey, okay. You know, center backs with Kanate, if he doesn't resign, you know, are we actually gonna rotate Van Dyke? Probably not. So anyway, I could go on and on and on. We need that. That's gonna be expensive. It's gonna be really expensive. And so I just bring this topic up with the the idea of there's a World Cup this summer, they're gonna push the start of the league back by a week. Great. Okay. So they're gonna start, I think, August 22nd, something like that is when the first game is. Depending on how far these guys go, they're gonna be fried going into next season. So I I just don't understand unless there's going to be a philosophical shift on how we do this, it feels like what's gonna happen is we're just gonna continue not training as much, trying to manage these guys during the week, and then play all the same guys 90 minutes every game. And and I think if that happens next season, you know, I would expect similar results, similar performances from certain guys.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah. And again, we're not part of these conversations, but I'd be very curious. This is why I was pushing for like, hey, let's do as much business as we can in January, just because at least we have that locked up and guys can bet in, you know, albeit messily during the second half of the season, bes opposed to the summer. But, you know, no one called. Uh but but but part of that too is I wonder if there's going to be a shift in approach because there has to be, because how we, you know, sort of like, hey, we want to do this this summer, clearly didn't work very well. Obviously, some injuries and some other things you couldn't have foreseen necessarily. But I mean, again, we've talked about this ad nauseum. I not Hughes has this pedigree a little bit, but Edwards is like, hey, look, weren't we the Diamond in the Rough kind of club? Can we go go back to doing that where we get a guy like, you know, again, Mo uh from uh, you know, Chelsea slash Roma who's like 30, 35. Can we do that again?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Well, I don't I I agree. I don't think we're going to because I think two things. One, um, I think, well, actually, sorry, one thing. Did kind of yeah, multiple points to it. We don't have a developmental coach. Okay, and that's not a shot at slot. I'm just saying that I don't think he's shown interest in saying, bring me Mo Sala circa 2017 and let me develop him, or bring me Jenny Winaldum or whoever. I think he wants the finished product, and that necessitates like a different, you know, you're looking, uh, you're shopping in a different aisle in the store. You know what I mean? So uh I think Edwards was smart enough, you know, to give him credit before to realize, hey, you can bring somebody in under Klopp and he can kind of get him to the next level. I I don't feel like you know, slot has shown the inclination to want to do that personally, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

And that's sort of the interesting bit too, is was the calculus, and then maybe just went sideways, was the calculus, hey uh Klopp has retooled this team and gotten him very competitive very quickly, especially in the midfield. Couldn't quite do it that season. He's out, burned out. Let's get a guy who can do that now. And it worked, but now it's like, now what? And then we, you know, I again I'll be I'll be psyched when the movie comes out and we can read or watch it. Uh, of like, hey, I won and now I have all the leverage and I did some stuff or or pushed for some stuff that maybe wasn't a great idea given a squad that just succeeded.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

So the uh we'll see. Here's the second topic I had, and then and then actually that's probably it for me. But one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Slot has brought this up, I think, multiple times this season in press conferences. Now, I want to be careful, I don't want to um you know paraphrase at the point like at the expense of losing the point he's trying to make, right? But at the same time, you've heard this. He has brought up, hey, we have been very poor uh in games following a match in Europe. Okay. And I wanted to pick at that a little bit because uh I actually don't think that's true when you fact check it. Um and the other thing that I wanted to just kind of bring up, you know, to you is that it's interesting that he would I'm not saying he's blaming Europe. That th that's where I want to be careful. But like it's just interesting that he would point that out, you know, because maybe that's an area of opportunity in his mind. But like, hey buddy, we're gonna, you know, as long as you're here, if you're doing well, we're gonna be playing in Europe all the time. You know what I mean? Like this isn't gonna change, right? But basically, the the stats I pulled uh that I'll reference here, we have dropped points in the Premier League 19 times out of 36 this season. Okay, so more than more than 50% of the time we've dropped points. Um, you can really only correlate Europe to like six of those games. Okay. So it's not really true. And now he mentioned away games, to be fair to him. It wasn't all games, right? But it's not really true. Um to kind of make that point, first of all. And then second of all, I wanted to just like point out to the audience, you know, it's not just our away form that has stunk this year. Like we have not been good at home. So consider we went 14-4-1 in the Premier League last season. Two of those draws happened after we had quenched the league. Okay, so when we just you know, we didn't care. One of them was Arsenal, for example. We went up 2-0, took a nap, they came back in the game. You remember that? Like, we literally shut down. Okay. This season, we are 10-5-3. Okay. So, meaning of the 18 games that we have hosted at Anfield, we've dropped points in eight of them. And I remember the unbeaten runs that we had at home under Klopp, for example, in front of fans. I know that the COVID thing was kind of a you know throwaway. And I'm not expecting, you know, slot to go on a you know 54-game unbeaten streak at home or anything like that, but one of our superpowers, you know, in in the the really great call it decade we've had as a club was we have been really, really difficult to beat at home. And so, yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there to you, like to see what you've had any react on that. Like, number one, it's odd that he keeps blaming Europe. We're gonna be playing in Europe hopefully again next season. Number two, it's you know, that one of the easiest fixes we could have to kind of climb the table next season is to be better at Anfield. But we just at the beginning of the podcast, we just referenced like we tied Spurs, we tied Chelsea, who's on their third manager. That these teams were in horrible runs of form.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Oh, yeah. Six, six in a row loss, five in a row loss, and then we were like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

There is some very, very low-hanging fruit, I think, at home. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Well, so I wonder too, that's an interesting thought or conversational piece with this part as well. Is it seems to me difference between last season and this season is it almost seemed like he was making a bigger emphasis towards Europe. Like he was that was like the white whale that made him so bitter. It was like we unluckily drew PSG, who was red hot at the time last year, despite winning every game and being top of whatever. I'm not, I'm not bitter. It's fine. Um, and but maybe that's the move, also, is it seems like PSG last year and this year was like, hey, what if we lost a couple? And like we weren't, you know, um, kind of, you know, ran the table. So, but it seems like he and he'd made comments towards the end of the season saying, hey, I think the fact that we dropped out of Europe so quickly kind of gave us, which also doesn't make sense. It's almost like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth a little bit. But it's interesting that you bring that up because it may not be fully true, but then also it seems like he almost wanted Europe more. So then it's is that just a defense mechanism? He's just like making stuff up because he's like, ah, well, we failed there, but you know, it's not our fault in league as well. Um, but I think this goes back to the conversation about intensity. And that that especially more than anything has to be figured out at home. At home. I I still don't expect to your point to win, you know, years of games in a row there or not lose uh that often there. But it used to be a fortress. It used to be that people were concerned about going there. It used to be people, you know, quotes and uh media days and all these different things that you'd hear being like, oh man, it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

I mean it was in Pep's head.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Like you you is a mental block. Right. And now it's kind of like I I don't know if people still are concerned and and have sort of just found success or whatever, but it seems like we can't quite count on points there any given any given week. So I think that has to be refound again, and I'm not sure exactly how how to go about it. I what I do know though is our fan base is not in a good place right now. Uh just with our manager, with our run of form, with our players, lots of talks about you know, after our last last couple of matches, they're getting booze, players talking about it. Like, I can't remember the last time that's been a topic of conversation with our players.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

No, a hundred percent. Um yeah, something to monitor. You know, I like are we able to rebound at home next season? Can we kind of turn Anfield back into a fortress? Um okay, last thing, and then um then we can wrap for the day. So you saw the news earlier this week that um David Ornstein reported that Chelsea are trying to make a run at Javi Alonso. And just so you guys know if you didn't read it, it's a little bit weird reporting in the sense that it's like Chelsea are open to it. They want it. Jobby's like, yeah, maybe. You know, I'll take the call. Yeah, you know, I'm open-minded, right? Chelsea, okay. Not currently working. So it didn't read as like, you know, Alonso's like in London trying to negotiate a contract and like he's gonna take over anytime soon. That said, he's obviously been somebody that Liverpool fans in certain segments have wanted to come in and take over for a while now, and it seems like that's not going to happen. And so just wanted to get your thoughts on this. You know, um, my view for the record is it there's a macro thing potentially happening at the club that I think might be driving some of these things, in that there's been some smoke about Hughes. Is he gonna stay or not? Um, there's been some smoke about Edwards, is he going to stay or not? Right? And so the fact that none of these guys, I think, have signed contract extensions and are going into the final years of their deal uh makes you wonder if maybe it's like someone's told him, hey man, it's not really your call. Like we're not gonna change the manager here and you go through that if you're not gonna be here next year, right? Or maybe they're just saying, hey, I'm not gonna go through all that. I don't even know what I'm gonna do this summer. Right. You know, I think part of it could just be that, right? The other part of it could be that they just don't think he's very good. And that's fine, but like, could it be a stubbornness thing with slot where it's like, hey, admitting defeat, right? Admitting failure, admitting I was wrong, is just not palatable. You know, like could it be one of those things? I don't know. I'm just curious, like, you know, what what do you think of given that news? What do you mean more of slot admitting he's wrong? Not slot, hews and evidence. Oh, I think. Like, look, I don't we don't want the guy just won the league. We're not gonna just you know admit, hey, you know what? Like he's not the guy after one season. You know, we're done in here.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I think there's there's one part that like just overarchingly bothers me is that we just seem like we really struggle at at re-signing guys prior to their their last year. And I was like, maybe some of that's intentional as a leverage point, but I'm like, I think we like it seems like most other teams do better. And so while we're like, hey, let's let Mo run it down, let's let Trent run it down, let's let uh, you know, all of our guys, coaches, etc., let's let Kanate run it down. And I know there's outside circumstances kind of affecting that or impacting that. Um yeah, I I don't know. I think there's a part of me where getting back to like the intensity piece, we don't have, nor have we had in a long time since Klopp really, a like a passion leader. That's just not how our team is sort of constructed. Our captains, even you know, going back to like Jordan Henderson, have never, I mean, he's probably a little bit more passionate, but never your rah-rah guys, never guys that sort of build uh joy, passion, excitement. They've always been sort of calm, cool, collected. Like Trent's been that way, Rabbo is probably fiery, but you know, vice captain that doesn't play, not really helpful. Uh Van Dyke's that way, even Allison. Like you'd think most of our core players are kind of that way. So um, I don't know. I I I wonder that's not enough to say, hey, let's just sign a different manager and fire this guy just because he'll like get people excited. But then if we suck, like like it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. Um, but yeah, I guess that's the piece that I wonder. Um, and it's yeah, it's hard to think through what we do with all of that if we're not convinced, at least management-wise or I guess uh front office-wise, of any of the guys that are there, Edwards, Hughes, or slot.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Yeah, and you know what it feels like to me too is it feels a little bit like so we were very, very um aggressive and we were very, very certain, you know, in our approach last summer, right? Uh we want Bertz, we want Isak. Okay, like there weren't any, you know, um, wasn't any ambiguity about either one of those things. Since then, I feel like we've really like dithered and been like, ah, I'm not really sure. You know, there's been links to Semenya, and then it was like, no, we're not gonna go for it. Obviously, like Gaye blew up at the last minute, and then we all thought we'd go for them over, you know, January, and it didn't happen, you know. And it just makes me feel like, is there, you know, I've I've done the whole like, are we still for sale in the background thing? Who knows? But it just makes me this feels like that too, where it's like, well, we could have Alonzo and he's interested, but we're just kind of waffle back and forth. We're not really sure. And then by the time that we maybe decide, he's already off the market, you know, in the same way that Semenyo and and Gaye were, right? And so I don't know, there's just something about that that there's a little bit of I don't know if it's what I mentioned at first, or if it's just a little bit of like organizational uh lack of direction or uncertainty right now.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

I think it could be that. I yeah, the the weird vibe that I'm you're sort of describing, I would put it a different way, but like the same result is like we're like confidently unconfident or lacking confidence, where we're like, we definitely want Isak, we definitely want I could keep, like we definitely want worse, let's get him. And then about other guys were like, no, I don't know, but it's almost like this like confident, like, no, that's those guys are trash. But I wanted them, and now that now I've just like Gehi being one of them. It's like, was it just spite of like, oh, we want him, and then we didn't couldn't get him, and we're like, well, actually, he's he's hot garbage. We don't we don't want him. He passes the ball back to Everton, like we don't want that guy. Yeah, like we thought about it and we're like, man, did we just yeah, he plays play for Crystal Palace? Gross. Uh so um, but yeah, I think what's stemming from some of that is do we have direction going forward? Is everyone sort of pushing their own uh agenda or advocating for the things that they want? And you have sort of three different ways of looking at it between Edwards, Hughes, and slot that are all I don't know, they're not working or meshing well together. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

All right. Well, um, I gotta run. Work does call. I'm assuming it does for you too. Actually, and Johnny will be traveling here in Europe shortly. Right. That's right. Um, maybe a much more exciting job than I have.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Yeah, I'll just be limping around. Uh, but I maybe I'll send some uh some little sound bites from various places I am. No, no soccer to be seen, probably though.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

For those who listen to the, I don't know if anybody does, the uh the Rosillo podcast, he does those like travel episodes. You gonna do one of those?

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Travel pod. That's right. Just a lot of uh a lot of train noises in the background and and such. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yep. Well, for those who who listen to this, feel free to kind of drop your comments either on social media or you can do that in in the podcast chat itself. Let us know what you think about what's going on and and tune in this afternoon, 3 p.m. for those in the US, Liverpool at Aston Villa. We'll see how that goes. And when Johnny's back in town, we will be back with uh another episode of America's Anfield. So thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Thanks for tuning in to America's Anfield. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube, Twitter, Threads, and Instagram at America's Anfield. Got questions or topics you want us to cover? Send them our way. We'd love to include them in a future episode. Until next time, Up the Reds.