Beth Lindop

But then it means you've lost pre-season as well.

So you've lost that ability to... And never waste a season.

Exactly.

It's etting to their time of how much they can change things and have the summer to change things.

it obviously worked for us with Klopp to still, you know, get a new manager in, you know, partway into the season.

But it's because Jurgen was such a spiritual leader.

I think why, you know, with Brendan, why he lost a bit of faith is that, like, it just felt like every press conference he lent back on cliches and things that just didn't inspire the fans at all.

And when that's your only window into...

how inspirational is this fella, what are the intangibles that you all talk about there, which is the mentality he imparts onto footballers, but whenever we saw Brendan have a chance to do that, it felt like you are delusional, mate, so I can't imagine what the players are thinking looking at you when you're pulling up three envelopes in front of them and stuff, and they're seasoned professionals, and it's kind of getting to that point with slot now, but I actually think the toxicity under slot, unless I'm misremembering what the back end of Brendan was like a little bit, is actually worse, like it feels worse in the ground, the boos, I

I think are worse, sort of trying to remember back a little bit.

And you almost judge him more harshly because he's sort of...

I guess in the same mold as Brendan he's seen as this like tactician coach isn't he like maybe the reason they leave wanting in press conferences a bit or maybe the reason it sometimes looks like the players are a little bit almost demotivated as well because these guys are just like you know cold hard tacticians really but when the tactics are so far removed from what you want to see that's where it is difficult and I don't think Alonso has by any stretch of the imagination

he may not even be a better tactician than slot really in terms of you know credentials over the course of his career listening you know won the wonders league or unbeaten which you maybe you maybe say is better than anything that slot has achieved but in terms of you know the actual like coaching acumen or whatever maybe slot is better

Xabi Alonso is certainly no Jurgen Klopp in terms of I don't expect him to come in and suddenly inspire all this belief and do so much outside of just coaching the football team that really takes you along for the journey.

But even if he straddles those two things a little bit better than Salah has done, I think we'll all feel more optimistic about it because I've said it on shows before and it's almost, it becomes that intangible thing you referenced, Rob, unquantifiable thing is you just want to be taken along for the journey.

And at the moment, you don't necessarily feel like this fella is doing it.

And if nothing else,

the first game of next season if it's Xabi Alonso in the dugout and we lost the first game of next season I'm not suddenly going to be like well this is completely hopeless whereas if it's slot there's maybe an extent to which and even I'm not completely slot out as I said I'm still going to feel like it's pretty hopeless if we lose the first game of next season it's all about direction of travel I mean

If they go for Mourinho, it's literally roll on, roll off.

It's one thing Alonso did well at Madrid as well as he got those prima donnas there to press better than they'd ever pressed under any manager previously.