John Aldridge reflects on Liverpool's draw at Fulham and the race for the top four in the first half of his weekly ECHO column
Arne Slot and Ruben Amorim.
Arne Slot and Ruben Amorim.(Image: Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
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Liverpool weren’t great against Fulham, but they did well to come back from 1-0 down. It’s not the first time we’ve said that about the performance not being up to scratch.
We take the lead through Cody Gakpo and look like we’ve won the game. Whether Liverpool deserved to or not is a different story. But then we’re sucker punched by a wondergoal.
What the manager said and did at half-time was right though. We were better after the break and it looked like we had won it. We’ve got five points from the last three games. We didn’t deserve more against Leeds but it should have been seven.
I do think that sending Joe Gomez on was right at the time from Arne Slot. But then we sat deep. Far too deep. It’s very basic. You can’t sit back like that and Fulham punished us.
When Harrison Reed got the ball, I actually went ‘Shoot!’ because I thought he had no chance. Not from there.
But it’s a wondergoal. It's the goal of the season, but we should have still defended it better.
He was under no pressure at all. All our defenders were in the box. It could have been stopped by someone closing him down outside the box. You have to be alert to it.
I expected him to smash it over the bar. It’s a great strike and the goalkeeper stands no chance. But he had all the time in the world to hit that top corner. It’s a killer.
Wirtz warrants Liverpool luck
I’ll be honest, I thought Florian Wirtz was offside for his goal. It was strange to see it actually go our way!
If anyone deserves it, he does though. He wasn’t great but he got the goal. And it carries on this upwards trajectory from him over the past six weeks.
He’s got a couple of goals now and a few assists too. He’s making more of an impact as he gets more used to the Premier League.
He’s been on the left for the majority of that run. With Gakpo back now, it’ll be interesting to see where Arne uses him.
But with the injury to Alexander Isak and Mohamed Salah being away at AFCON, we’ve needed to see more from him. It’s just a shame it’s not led to more wins, even if we are nine unbeaten.
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Stick with Slot - but something has to change
Teams around us are slipping up. It’s just as well. We’re fourth but after these draws against Leeds and Fulham, it could have been a lot worse if others had got their own points on the board.
But you look around and they’re changing managers. Chelsea sacked Maresca. United have sacked Amorim. They both know how important it is to get in the top four.
They’re doing it now rather than later to have a go at getting in the top four. They are making the change before it is too late. We should be wary of both of them.
The owners have kept faith with Arne despite our difficult season. But if we hadn’t won the league last year, it might have been different for him. He might have lost his job too.
There were a lot of changes in the summer. On social media, it’s all about the predictability, the lack of pace, we’re too easy to play against. It's not an attractive style of football to watch and every game is a grind.
We’re waiting for something to change and so far it’s not happened. Hopefully something will click but it doesn’t look like anything will change drastically either.
We’re not a club who sack managers easily. We don’t do that, we're not United. But Arne is not daft. If he doesn’t deliver, that’s the way the game is. He knows it, we all know it.
Let’s hope he can turn it around. But we have to see some signs. We’re nine unbeaten but we’ve drawn a lot and aren’t playing well.
And if we’re being honest, you expect that run to end on Thursday away at Arsenal.