Right so Anfield is booing again. Not rival fans, not a dodgy refereeing decision, their own supporters booing their own team off the pitch. That is never a good sign. That is the kind of thing that makes you put your scarf in your pocket and stare at the floor on the way to the car park.
Liverpool under Arne Slot have gone from looking like genuine title winners to a side that nobody can quite figure out, including apparently the players themselves. And that is the strangest part of all this. The squad is still excellent on paper. Salah is still Salah. The spine of the team is still there. But something has gone missing and nobody seems to know where they left it.
The boos tell you everything you need to know about where the mood is at Anfield right now. These are not impatient fans turning on a team after a bad run of three games. This is a fanbase that watched their side win the league and then slowly watched the whole thing unravel in real time. The intensity that made Liverpool so terrifying under Klopp has just evaporated. They look like a team playing in second gear wondering if third gear exists somewhere.
And the identity question is a proper one. Klopp's Liverpool had a style so clear you could feel it through the telly. High energy, high press, absolute chaos in the best possible way. Slot's version right now is like someone turned the volume down and forgot to turn it back up. It is not necessarily wrong, tactically speaking, but football fans do not just want results, they want to feel something. And right now Anfield is not feeling much.
The summer is going to be massive for Slot. Genuinely. Because right now he has a squad full of quality and a crowd full of doubt and that is a dangerous combination to take into a new season. He needs to sort out the style, sort out the identity, and give those fans something to get behind again before the boos become the soundtrack to the whole campaign.
Let me know your thoughts.