“He was lucky Alisson saved his blushes after that clumsy poke, but losing possession 13 times is the real crime. You can’t play for Liverpool and be that careless. FSG must sell him while he still has value”, Michael Owen slams the Liverpool ‘flop’ that Arne Slot is now preparing to axe this January

The Ruthless Audit: Michael Owen’s Scathing Verdict Signals January Exodus at Anfield

In the relentless, high-stakes theatre of the Premier League, where every touch is a data point and every error a potential turning point, the margin for error at an institution like Liverpool is vanishingly small. Legends of the club, those who have felt the unique pressure of the Anfield shirt, often hold the most unforgiving mirror to those who now wear it. Michael Owen, a former golden boy of the Kop, has not merely offered criticism in the wake of a fraught victory; he has delivered a forensic and merciless indictment that reads like a transfer recommendation. His words cut to the very core of the standards required at Liverpool Football Club.

**”He was lucky Alisson saved his blushes after that clumsy poke, but losing possession 13 times is the real crime,”** Owen stated, dissecting a performance with the cold precision of a former striker who knows that profligacy in one area of the pitch can be fatal in another. He then delivered the damning, overarching verdict: **”You can’t play for Liverpool and be that careless.”** The conclusion was not a call for improvement, but for a transaction. **”FSG must sell him while he still has value.”**

This is more than punditry; it is a public declaration that a player has failed the fundamental test of reliability demanded by the club’s ethos. Coupled with reports that new manager Arne Slot is **”now preparing to axe”** the same individual this January, Owen’s comments frame the impending departure not as a tough choice, but as a necessary surgical removal for the health of the entire squad.

Deconstructing the “Crime”: The Sin of Carelessness

Owen’s analysis masterfully separates the dramatic from the damning. The “clumsy poke” near his own goal—the moment of high drama that required Alisson Becker’s heroics—is framed as a fortunate near-miss. The true “crime,” in his view, is the stat line: **13 possessions lost.** This is the unglamorous, repetitive failure that truly undermines a team’s structure.

For a club whose modern identity under Jürgen Klopp, and now under Slot’s evolution of it, has been built on controlled aggression and intelligent ball retention to sustain pressure, such carelessness is anathema. It represents a breakdown in the fundamental contract between a Liverpool player and the system: you are a custodian of collective effort. Each lost possession isn’t just a missed opportunity; it’s a gift of oxygen and initiative to the opponent, a betrayal of the intense, coordinated pressing from teammates, and a direct violation of the tactical discipline required at the elite level. Owen, having played in systems that demanded precision, labels this what it is: unacceptable for the jersey.

The Owen Doctrine: Sentiment Has No Place in the Market

Owen’s final clause is where the sentiment of a former player gives way to the cold logic of a modern football strategist. **”FSG must sell him while he still has value.”** This is a brutal assessment of football’s reality. It acknowledges that performance slumps can quickly become permanent depreciations in the transfer market.

It suggests that the player in question—widely speculated to be a forward or attacking midfielder whose output has failed to justify both his opportunities and his stylistic fit—has crossed a threshold. The issue is no longer one of “finding form” but of possessing a core trait (ball retention) deemed insufficient for the required level. To delay, in this view, is to risk being left with an unsellable asset and a lingering problem. It is a call for proactive, even pre-emptive, ruthlessness from the club’s ownership.

The Slot Synchronization: A Manager’s Mandate

The resonance of Owen’s public critique with the reports of Arne Slot’s private intentions is what gives this story its compelling weight. It suggests a powerful alignment of external analysis and internal decision-making. Slot, tasked with molding a new-look Liverpool, cannot afford passengers or players whose technical habits contradict his philosophy. If his system demands players who are secure in possession, intelligent in their movement, and reliable under pressure, then a player consistently guilty of “carelessness” is not just underperforming—he is conceptually incompatible.

Preparing to “axe” the player in January indicates Slot is conducting a ruthless audit of his inherited squad, prioritizing the systemic fit and mental resilience of his personnel over past reputation or transfer fee. It is the first, stark evidence of him putting his own stamp on the team’s culture, defining clearly what “can’t play for Liverpool” means in the Slot era.

Conclusion: The Anfield Filter in Full Effect

Michael Owen’s comments and Arne Slot’s reported actions represent the Anfield filter working at its most severe. The club is a machine that grinds down and spits out those who cannot meet its exacting technical and temperamental standards. This moment is a stark reminder that at Liverpool, history is revered, but present-day contribution is sacred.

The unnamed player stands at a precipice, deemed “lucky” for a goalkeeper’s intervention and “careless” by a legend’s measure. In the ruthless calculus of elite football, where value is fleeting and patience is short, such verdicts often become self-fulfilling prophecies. The January window now looms not as a period of reinforcement, but of reckoning, where the first casualty of the Slot revolution may well be a talent deemed, by the most unforgiving of judges, fundamentally careless. The message from the past and the present is unified: at Anfield, you are only as good as your last touch—and all thirteen that you wasted.