Liverpool fans want to emphasise the positives despite PSG defeat, despite being ‘outrun, outplayed and outsung’…
Send your views on any subject to theeditor@football365.com
Some Liverpool perspective
As a Liverpool fan I am as gutted that we lost last night, but fair play to PSG, what a side they are – they barely give the ball away and they have such raw pace. And they can defend, who knew?!
Anyway, the reaction is to be expected. ‘Liverpool: not all that’, blah, blah…
I just think a little perspective is needed. Back in August, knowing that this was Slot’s first full season, I would have happily taken top four, perhaps with a cup run (either at home or abroad) thrown in.
To be 16 points clear in March, ‘just about’ knocked out of the CL by an exceptional PSG side (which, for us, as winners of the ‘mega-group’, even getting drawn against them seems a little weird, when Villa who finished 8th, got Brugge… anyway…) is faaaaar further ahead than I thought we would be.
We’re likely gonna win the title – so, er, thank you. This isn’t even Slot’s team. And I am glad he signed nobody last year…
Simple analogy: you don’t start cooking something for dinner before you have checked what ingredients you have in the cupboard do you? A year to work out what he has/and what he needs was very sensible.
After this imperious season, I am intrigued to see what does with his ‘own team’.
If we get a domestic cup to complement a league title, I know most Reds will be mega-chuffed and will quickly forget about last night.
And who will stop PSG? Sheesh.
Paul (Did the douchebag with the horn behind the goal in the penalty shootout get on anyone else’s tits? Guessing that was his aim.)
…I think it might help to rewind a little. Liverpool were supposed to go into transition this season. New manager, very little transfer activity (and none of it meaningful), I am not sure a single pundit anywhere tipped them to have any sort of success this season. I do appreciate that the usual suspects will be making merry at the result last night, and fair play to them, it’s lovely that they have something to be happy about, even if all they have is schadenfreude. We all have to take what we can get in this life and clearly they don’t have much else to make them happy.
But a narrow defeat over two legs against the form team in Europe right now? Not a disaster. For all those calling Ligue 1 a farmer’s league, well, there is something in that, but it doesn’t mean PSG are not an outstanding team right now. Do you think the Dutch league was particularly well regarded when Ajax dominated Europe?
PSG deserved to win the tie, it would be churlish to argue to the contrary, but the actual result? You can’t get narrower than penalties.
Liverpool are having an incredible season, and as ever, it is a privilege to be experiencing it. No-one sensible thought that there was a realistic chance of a quadruple, and should we go on to win the league now (a task made easier now that we don’t have four draining midweek European ties), we will get back on our perch and will unarguably be the most successful team that England has ever produced. Not too shabby for this Liverpool supporter.
Now next season, with exits looming and other replacements needed? It’s got transition written all over it, obviously.
Mat (thoroughly enjoyed the retorts to my last mail in the comments yesterday)
Succinct
Outrun. Outplayed. Outsung.
Still gonna win the league though.
Wik, Pretoria (PSG are legit), LFC
No excuses
You win some, you lose some. No blaming the ball or the pitch. It wasn’t the referee’s fault. Nothing to do with injuries. Nothing to do with luck. Over the two legs, we just didn’t do enough to progress. Well done to PSG, they are easily the best team we have faced this season. Rival fans who have tried to downplay our achievements this season take note: this is how to be magnanimous in defeat.
Jimmy the Gent
…There’s a lot of salty fans online today, I’m not gonna be one of them. PSG were the better team over two legs and are genuinely an excellent side.
Took them a while to get their act together this season but they are now a very good side. Personally I think these two games show that Jota isn’t at the required level really, he was ineffective. It also showed that actually Trent can defend because over two legs he repeatedly kept Kvara quiet.
It’s disappointing to go out now but we’ve won the league and could also win the League Cup, a double for your first season is pretty good by anyone’s standards.
Congrats PSG, I actually had money on them to win the Champs League months ago after they struggled to qualify and my opinion hasn’t changed.
Lee
MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Salah, Van Dijk among Liverpool trio in top 10 overworked Premier League players this season
👉 Mo Salah and Arne Slot actually deserve MORE praise as PSG defeat exposes flawed team-mates
👉 Liverpool: Arne Slot told he ‘wasted’ substitution vs PSG as pundit hits out at another ‘poor’ Reds star
Laughing at Mo…Oh the irony of “The greatest Premier League player of all time” diving and holding his (untouched head) to try and get a penalty. And then they lose on penalties. Arf!
George Murray (Wolves, since you ask)
…If only he’d been able to find his way out of Nuno Mendes pocket he might still be in contention for Ballon d’Or this YR. Pretty sure that’s his last chance gone now, both for this season and likely for his career. I feel really bad for him, as on balance he’s deserved at least one during the time he’s been at Liverpool.
Rob AFC
…I enjoyed Minty, LFC’s ‘if only we’d taken the one or two chances we had…’ comment. If PSG had taken only their big chances they’d have scored 8-10 goals across the two legs. This is the best PSG side I’ve seen I think – Luis Enrique is doing a great job there, they were by far the better team and look like they’ll take some beating.
Also interesting to hear one or two Liverpool fans bemoaning injuries… Imagine if you were playing Endo up front and a youth teamer instead of Salah for months of the season lads.
Excellent, balanced email from Rob A this morning. Injuries are not the only problem Arsenal have. But they’re the biggest one.
Should be a boring game for Arsenal tonight, either that or we concede early and our second team gets nervy. Surely we’ll go through though. Surely…
Simon Cochrane
Jim’ll Fix It
There has been a lot of reporting about the artistic stylings of Sir Jim at Manchester United, which have received the reaction they have deserved, but to give a crumb of credit to offset the avalanche of nonsense, it does seem as if he is serious about fixing at least one aspect of footballing operations.
For way too long our transfer adventures have swung from the laughable to the disastrous. Willing to pay very high amounts for players that were unwanted, old, untested, unsuitable or injury prone. Possibly all five. Compounding this was the exorbitant wages offered to some/most players.
It had gotten to the stage where the Venn diagram between teams who could afford players for that cost/wage and would want the players has become disjointed (much like the transfer policy itself). To put it another way, there existed no credible market for players with these skill levels and wage demands. We have seen this play out in the difficulty of selling anyone, and the big transfer losses in recent times.
Perhaps the most amusing/infuriating part (delete as appropriate depending on who you support) is the insistence on extending contracts “to protect asset value”. Since the assets had already been priced out of the market (and had effectively no value), this just meant being stuck with high wage players for even longer.
But it seems someone has finally cottoned on, and there is a determination to reset the transfer parameters. How successful the buying new players aspect will be remains to be seen, but it appears that there will be a focus on younger players rather than superstars. More evident is that there will be a concerted effort to get rid of players on very high salaries, and reset the wage structure to something more sensible/manageable.
Casemiro is the poster old man for the way things were done in the past – paying over the odds for a superstar and having him on a long contract with ruinous wages. He was phenomenal for one season, but the remainder of his contract has shown the folly of that approach. We’ve seen knock on effects with a player like Rashford. A very good premier league level player, almost any team in the league could use him, but he is not worth GOAT wages.
So, “interesting times” ahead. It seems from what has happened this season that the plan is that we’ll be sticking with Amorim, trying to get rid of overpaid players and resetting transfer expectations and the wage structure.
Whether that happens in practice given the track record of those in charge is the billion pound question.
Collin (at least we’ll have a new circus tent) Hack