Jim D

It's his first season in England, I don't think Arne was expecting the season to pan out as it has and quite frankly neither did we. He'll learn a lot from this season particularly when it comes to squad management. It appears he is only trusting a core group of players in the squad. Regardless of what happens till the end of the season we're going to be seeing huge and significant changes at Anfield in the summer. Some of Jurgen's buys will be phased out and Arne will be bringing in his own players.

Yeah s***, f*** it, we just got to do our job, do ours and there is nothing a*** can do.

a*** fixtures: Fulham H Everton A Brentford H Ipswich A Palace H Bournemouth H Liverpool A Newcastle H Southampton A Their CL quarter final is sandwiched between Everton, Brentford and Ipswich. The Bitters at Goodison will be a tough one for them.

Looking at that fixture list, there are no easy games in the Premier League, obviously you look at the home games to get you over the line but only if the crowd plays their part. The "easiest" appears to be Leicester away, would be nice to have it wrapped up when we play Spurs at home. Arsenal will prioritize Europe which means its almost certain they will drop points somewhere else and we don't have to win all the next five games.

Didn't get a shot on goal in the entire 90 mins, first time that has ever happened in his LFC career.

Minutes played this season in all competitions. Virge is almost 34, Mo is almost 33 and they've played the most minutes this season. We need a fit and ready Cody Gakpo badly, Jota, Jones and Nunez are too inconsistent. Gravenberch is struggling probably because he's never had to play this much in his young career. Robbo is putting in decent numbers despite being 31 and a marauding left back for most of his career. Virgil van Dijk 3,626 Mohamed Salah 3,597 Ryan Gravenberch 3,434 Alexis Mac Allister 3,004 Trent Alexander-Arnold 2,853 Dominik Szoboszlai 2,793 Andrew Robertson 2,755 Luis Díaz 2,701 Ibrahima Konaté 2,643 Alisson 2,538 Cody Gakpo 2,142 Darwin Núñez 1,861 Curtis Jones 1,859 Caoimhín Kelleher 1,530 Diogo Jota 1,423 Kostas Tsimikas 1,356 Conor Bradley 1,009 Jarell Quansah 1,005 Joe Gomez 876 Wataru Endo 753 Harvey Elliott 578 I think distance covered in all competitions might be a better metric as to why we've been struggling in recent games. I cannot find those easily on the internet.

Aye nicely summed up, Arne has had an unbelievable first season. I never expected this in August, I was expecting a battle for a top 4 finish and maybe a decent run in a cup competition. He's exceeded expectations and that is what has made the past week disappointing. But at the same time you got to look at the bigger picture. What this is telling us is when need more strength in depth if we want to challenge on multiple fronts. Our "core" squad, the starting eleven is the best in the league clearly but go beyond that we're lacking. Ultimately our downturn in form is a little worrying but I believe its just down to a core group of players playing too much football recently. Thankfully we've got a bit of a break now before the next match and have to only worry about one game a week till the end of the season, this will give the lads more resting time and more time to prepare for the opposition.

He's not played well for a while, even when he was scoring goals in recent games. Is Ramadan a factor? I don't know but he has a history of not being as good at this time of the year compared to Pre-Christmas. He does play almost every week but you can't criticize Arne for that when he's our best player.

Maybe there is some justification? Mo's form has drastically dropped, he hasn't played well for a while now. Recent goals are papering over the cracks, if he ain't scoring then people will start to notice. Trent has been gone for a while, he knows he can get big bucks with Real. Van Dijk is the priority out of the three I would renew but he's looked lackadaisical recently.

Well in this day in age, its easy to be outraged on the internet, everyone wants instant gratification. Yeah its s*** to lose a cup final but this isn't the first time I've seen Liverpool lose a cup final and it won't be the last time. I've been supporting them since 1987, used to go regularly to games in the mid 90s on the Kop. I've seen the good times and the bad times, if we win the league no one should give a s*** about what happened today.

Slot's errors today: 1) Setting out the lads to play passively in the first 45 mins 2) No making subs soon enough particularly at Half Time when the writing was on the wall. 3) Allowing their first goalscorer to be marked by Mac. Its never nice to lose a cup final but we got to now focus getting the lads over the line for a much bigger prize.

Our front line was blunt, how many of them forced a save on their goalkeeper? The lack of creativity is worrying.

So very disappointing, first half performance cost us this game, there are some worrying signs that we're running out of legs for the rest of the season. Thank f*** the International break is coming up and we only have to play one game a week from now until the end of the season. Just give me the League Title lads and I will be over the f***ing moon about this season.

Yeah there was some stat somewhere that we were one of the teams who had ran the fewest distance across all games but I suppose when its through a core group of players its surely going to add up. It's simple our bench options this season are just not good enough, Arne doesn't appear to trust them. Jones, Nunez, Elliot, Chiesa, Quansah. We need more strength in depth.

Probably, but like I've said previously, this is Slot's first season in England, he's inexperienced and so he's going to play it kind of safe. He needs to have a good idea of what type of squad he has at his disposal. This squad cannot challenge on multiple fronts.

Do you think those 7 games in 20 days in February took a lot out of us? Its like we've been running on fumes

Yes, very eerily, I'm just glad there is an international break this time, some of our players need a long break and recharge for the run in.

Aye, Newcastle have had more time to rest and prepare for this game. Their players have more energy than us. We're running out of juice at the most crucial time of the season. Lets hope we got enough left in the tank to get us over the line for the Premier League.

That first half performance set the pattern of play, so disappointed to see us play like that in first 45 mins considering what happened midweek. Was it complacency? Tiredness mental and/or physical? Key players losing form at a crucial time?

Lets be honest none of our front three have played well for a while, Mo, Jota and Diaz are all off the boil.

Desperate times means desperate measures

This is concerning, we've not put in a decent performance for a month now. The season is catching up to us, we look lackluster, tired and just seemingly going through the motions.

Well there is only one player out there who truly knows what happened, Alvarez. Interesting to hear what he has to say about it.

Here is a frame by frame video including a close up of the ball on contact. To me it's inconclusive you can't tell one way or the other if it hits his standing foot first so the pen should've stood. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/L52FYl8X7l

His standing foot is extremely close to the ball but it's really hard to tell if it makes any sort of contact with the ball. Christ if we had half the luck Real have had in the competition over the past five years we'd be on seven or eight by now.