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Identity meltdown Liverpool’s intensity questioned as Arne Slot faces mounting pressure following FA Cup exit, Van Dijk reveals mental strain

Ű BY RICHARD JOLLY

around but we have been going through this for almost 75 percent of the season. It definitely hurts me. So the focus is now on Paris away, but it’s tough. It will be a tough Sunday to digest it.” Many of the Liverpool supporters left the Etihad Stadium long before the final whistle and Van Dijk did not blame them as he said sorry to them. He added: “The fans were there to support us and I can only apologise to the fans for what we have shown, especially the second. I can under stand the fans’ frustration as well.” The Reds have contrived to spend £450 mil lion (RM 2.4 billion) and yet look short on play ers, rendering it harder to play high-speed foot ball when the overworked know they have to manage their energy and Slot is forever substi tuting those he fears will get injured. On Saturday, Van Dijk conceded a fourth penalty of the campaign; but a man nearing his 35th birthday has already played 4,131 minutes for Liverpool and a further 675 for the Netherlands. Szoboszlai, at fault for Tottenham’s late equaliser three weeks ago – albeit when used out of position at rightback – is now up to 3,938, plus 717 for Hungary. If there is one team ill-equipped to consis tently play at the high speed Liverpool showed in their 4-0 win over Galatasaray, it may be them. They entered the sea son with too small a squad in which two young players, Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni, and two senior players, Wataru Endo and Federico Chiesa, were never going to start much. Add in three long-term injuries, to Giovanni Leoni, Alexander Isak and Conor Bradley, and Slot’s attempts to make sure that Jeremie Frimpong and Joe Gomez don’t break down and Liverpool look a team simply trying to survive, an exhausted group rather than one who can tire the opposition with their own run ning. They lack the pressing that was Klopp’s trademark: two of those who defended so ener getically from the front were Luis Diaz and the late Diogo Jota, one sold, the other tragically killed. Meanwhile, they have lost their efficiency. Slot bemoans missed chances and how other teams overperform their expected goals against Liverpool. Yet a side who have conceded 63 goals in all competitions have not been defensively tight enough. Much as Slot feels that, across the country, there are too few goals in open play, they were unlocked by the creativity in open play of City’s Rayan Cherki on Saturday. Liverpool may have assumed that Florian Wirtz would have had a similar impact. But if they are not the creative team or the efficient side, the mentality monsters or the ones with the intense identity, what are they? And if there is not likely to be an answer to their identity crisis until next season, it would help if Slot could pre sent a compelling vision of what his Liverpool should look like. – The Independent

T HERE was a familiar presence on the touchline in a Liverpool FC game. Pep Lijnders belongs in a tradition of suc cessful Liverpool assistant managers, even if his destiny, unlike those of Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan, was not to get the top job at Anfield. Instead, Lijnders has, via an ill-fated spell in charge of RB Salzburg, traded a role as Jurgen Klopp’s sidekick for one as Pep Guardiola’s sec ond-in-command. With the Catalan banned, he was in charge in the technical area as Liverpool crashed out of the FA Cup, beaten 4-0 by Manchester City. Lijnders had been on the winning side in these clubs’ previous FA Cup clash, too: Klopp’s team had been outstanding in the 3-2 semifinal win in 2022. Lijnders coined one of the mottos of Klopp’s Liverpool: “Our identity is intensity”. A reason, perhaps, why the Dutchman has not suc ceeded as a manager in his own right is that such phrases sound more convincing when said by Klopp. But, in his time at Anfield, he wrote a book called Intensity. Unsurprisingly, it is out of stock in the Liverpool club shop now. But Liverpool have lost their intensity in another respect. “Our second half, the intensity we didn’t match,” said a downcast Virgil van Dijk after his hopes of lifting the FA Cup this year ended. Klopp had called his team “mentality monsters”. On Saturday, Dominik Szoboszlai reflected: “The fighting spirit wasn’t there enough. The mentality wasn’t there enough.” And if, over eight-and-a-half years under Klopp, Liverpool were not always mentality monsters, or intense, or playing heavy-metal football, there is the sense they have lost their identity now. That they have lost 15 games this season, their most in a campaign since 2014/15 culmi nated in a 6-1 thrashing at Stoke, shows they are not as hard to beat. They have lost to late goals too often this year, but there have also been too many emphatic defeats. This was a fifth by at least three goals. Each, in its own way, has been a limp, lame loss. There are times when Arne Slot’s Liverpool lose their way in games even before they lose them. It is not entirely his fault, but it raises the question of what Slotball actually is. It had seemed a hugely efficient tweak, ren dering Klopp’s football calmer, more efficient, more effective. Yet Arne Slot won a Premier League title with players he inherited, rather than those pur chased on his watch. This year, Liverpool – apart from when they score their own late winners – have tended to lack the visceral excitement Klopp’s football offered. Slot can sound like a man dreaming of a

FROM LEFT: Pep Lijnders, Arne Slot and Jurgen Klopp. – REUTERSPIC

pointing results and performances, he replied: “We’ve had a couple already this season. It’s mentally very tough at the moment, I must say. “I’ve been there already many times this sea son when I’ve had hope and then we couldn’t build on performances. The intensity we didn’t match, the challenges we didn’t win, it was tough. To lose then 4-0 is tough. “I am trying to think how we can turn it

different time when he complains about low blocks and set-pieces. A broader failing – again, not entirely his – is that Liverpool are not intense enough. It was Liverpool’s 15th defeat of the cam paign in all competitions and a downcast Van Dijk said that three-quarters of their season has been like this. Asked if it was one of Liverpool’s most disap

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