“Welcome to hell”
the hit
Saturday, 10/4, was Doomsday. Marked by a third consecutive loss for
the Reds, it was the first time we’ve dropped three straight since 22/23.
I hate international breaks. Especially after dropping points. There’s nothing worse than pausing play on the back of a bad result without the chance to redeem yourself.
Actually, let me rephrase that. There’s nothing worse than pausing play on the back of three bad results without the chance to redeem yourself. Forget Galatasaray away. This is hell.
Still, we have to be honest about finding ourselves in hell. Aside from the last two weeks, we’ve been incredibly spoiled lately.
With the exception of a single week in March — when Liverpool was eliminated from the Champions League in a shootout by PSG, then lost the Carabao Cup final to Newcastle — last season was one marked by very little adversity. We built a healthy lead at the top of the league table and clinched title 20 with four games to go, Arsenal and City never mounting a true challenge. Our talisman cruised to Player of the Season and our new manager settled into Klopp’s shoes like he’d worn them all his life.
Fans and pundits agreed Slot added newfound control to Klopp’s side, even an element of boringness. Fewer risky forward passes. Defensive solidity. Placing greater value in possession. And with consistent play came consistent results and margins of victory. A lot of clean sheets and 2-0 score lines.
The only constant this season, whether we’ve won or lost, has been turbulence — and with it, some poor performances. It reminds me of something Jurgen said in an interview or a press conference a few years back that stuck with me: “Life gives you always a knock.”
It could be construed as a warning not to get too big for your britches. I find comfort in it personally. It’s an invitation to let go, to understand everyone goes through tough times we didn’t see coming. That much is out of our control. What we can control, as the cliche goes, is how we respond.
Before we talk through why we might underperforming this season and explore ways Arne and company can fix it, two key things:
First, digging for answers isn’t the same as making excuses. To be clear, Liverpool has not played well this season. It hasn’t all been flat out bad — the doggedness to scrape out so many late winners has been commendable, and we’ve strung some good halves together. Truthfully, though, we don’t deserve more points than we have in any competition.
Second, it’s ridiculous to rule out Diogo’s passing as a possible contributor. The football world agreed our team is due some extra grace this season. But grief isn’t measurable in the way football is. For that reason, let’s table the Diogo factor for now.
Emilia Bona said it best on the Anfield Wrap: It’s like Slot “wants to wear all of the clothes he got for Christmas day at the same time, and the outfit doesn’t quite work.” Isak, Ekitike, Wirtz, Frimpong, Kerkez, Leoni, Mamardashvili — that’s one hell of a pile of HERE WE GO!s. Christmas in summer, courtesy of Richard Hughes-Claus. And with that amount of investment made and quality on hand, especially in today’s climate of instant gratification, immediate results weren’t just expected, but demanded by Reds supporters and rival fans alike.
The point no one wanted to hear in the summer — again, including Reds fans and our opposition — is that we also offloaded a considerable amount of talent, including starters. Our own supporters didn’t want to hear our new cache of superstars may not gel right away, and our rivals didn’t want to hear us deflect from the vast sums of money spent by pointing out money recouped.
Throughout 24/25, Slot became known for picking the same starting 11 every game, give or take an attacker. One of those attackers was Luis Diaz, a constant outlet, dependable ball carrier, and all-out work horse who’s now a nailed-on starter for fellow European giant Bayern Munich.
While I no longer care for Trent Alexander-Arnold, and never cared for his defensive lapses when he was a Liverpool player, his impact as a passer and his relationship with Mo Salah is undeniably missed right now. He and Andy Robertson formed a regular partnership as high-flying fullbacks that, for years, was as effective as our front three of Salah, Mane, and Firmino. Robertson is now a regular on the bench.
We’re without Nunez and Jota, who combined for 3,878 minutes played last season even as attacking options four and five. Capable late-game lock-picker Harvey Elliott is Aston Villa’s new number nine. And as lackluster as Jarrell Quansah’s sole season under Slot turned out, there’s little doubt in my mind he’d be getting some clock over struggling Ibou Konate these days if he wasn’t now a Leverkusen player.
Assuming one of Bradley, Frimpong, or Szoboszlai starts at right back, Kerkez starts at left back, Wirtz starts in attacking midfield, and Isak or Ekitike starts up front, there are four new members of our starting 11 this season — and that isn’t including Giorgi in net, who’s currently covering for the injured Alisson. The energy, quality, and hopefully, longevity these players will bring to the team is beyond promising. But changing over a third of the recipe that worked so deliciously last season — and much of the season before — poses its risks. At least if you want to keep pace with the best teams in the Premier League and Champions League.
Whether or not Slot goes back to picking the same 10-11 players match after match to reintroduce some consistency, we don’t know. What I do know is I hope he lands on those 10-11 players, and a go-to system, quickly. Once you land on a group that works well together and a shape that allows them to work well together, that makes rotating personnel a simpler task. It becomes plug and play versus reinventing the wheel.
Of course, it’s easier said than done. The football voices I trust the most are largely advocating for Wirtz to continue in midfield. If that’s the way forward, Gravenberch has to be one of his partners in the central three. But who’s the third? After two years of undroppability, Mac Allister’s sub-par fitness and resulting form has led to us losing the midfield battle fairly often this year. Curtis Jones is as solid a squad option as we have on our roster, but his ceiling isn’t as high as any of last year’s starting trio. Dom Szoboszlai has to play, but I’m starting to think we need him at right back. He gives us the attacking impetus we’re missing in Trent’s absence (see 7:52), has the best rapport with Mo, and is playing at a much higher level than Bradley — who can’t play a half without picking up a booking these days — and Frimpong, who’s been struggling in ball possession and who Slot and Ronald Koeman both seem to favor as a winger. To be clear, I’m light years away from giving up on Bradley and Frimpong, but there’s a strong case Dom’s the best RB option in the team right now.
As for the back line in general, let’s start here: we’ve played 11 games this season, kept two clean sheets, and conceded 15 goals. At the same stage last season, we’d kept six clean sheets and only conceded four. Konate is the obvious scapegoat, and don’t get me wrong, he’s been atrocious with and without the ball for most of the season, especially during this losing run. But it’s more than that. We look especially vulnerable to counters and set pieces. Individual errors and giveaways, whether they’ve led directly to goals or not, are far more common. Long balls over our fullbacks’ heads on either side are leading to far too many quality chances. Even during good spells, we’re still allowing the opposition to advance into our final third and get into promising shooting or crossing positions without being closed down soon enough. If you ask me, that’s the main reason we’ve blown so many two-goal leads. The onus is mostly on our back four to correct these issues, but better pressing and connectedness from front to back would make their lives a lot easier. Again, this comes down to on-field relationships — how you work together and communicate, knowing where your teammate will be and where you need to be. Only two ways to strengthen those bonds: training and game time.
Looking up front, we have 11 different goal scorers after 11 games. While attacking output from a multitude of positions is key to a balanced team, our front line’s numbers this season aren’t where they need to be. This time last year, Nunez, Gakpo, Jota, Diaz, and Salah had 19 goals between them, Salah leading the way with seven. This season, Salah is stuck on three. Luckily Ekitike hasn’t wasted any time getting off the mark, and Chiesa has added a much-needed spark off the bench. But we need the likes of Mo, Isak, and Gakpo — what will likely be a common front three this season — to carry more weight in goal contributions.
It’s worth pointing out we’ve already played some very good teams in very tough atmospheres, with the exception of Burnley and Southampton.
Oliver Glasner’s Crystal Palace (6th in the PL table) twice, on a neutral field and then at Selhurst Park. Before losing to Everton, they’d gone 19 games unbeaten, a club record.
Bournemouth (4th) and Arsenal (1st) at home.
Newcastle (11th) away during the Isak saga’s boiling point. The ball was in play for 40.8% of the game, the lowest percentage in the league since 2010.
Atletico Madrid (5th in the La Liga table) at home.
Everton (8th) at home, on the back of three wins and a draw in their last four.
Galatasaray away — aptly nicknamed, you guessed it, “Hell.” The ball was in play for 50.5% of the game and we conceded thanks to an incredibly soft penalty call.
Chelsea (7th) away.
With the Premier League as strong as it’s been in years (especially considering the great starts two of the three promoted teams have made), the collective might of our Champions League draw (Qarabag is in 6th, for God’s sake!), and Palace (again) on the horizon in the Carabao, it’s not like we’ll have it ten times easier from here on out. But having played seven league games, our next seven league opponents are considerably lower in the table — City is the only team above 9th:
Man United (10th)
At Brentford (16th)
Aston Villa (13th)
At Man City (5th)
Nottingham Forest (17th)
At West Ham (19th)
Sunderland (9th)
None of that really matters if we don’t start playing better, sure. We have to get back to playing in a consistent way, with a consistent group of players in consistent roles. Fewer last-minute wins and losses. More game plan execution and game management. I love the drama the sport provides, but not every time we play. As Arne showed us last season, boring isn’t always bad.
When you look at things in terms of points, there’s no need to freak out about being one point off the top of the league. There’s no need to freak out about dropping a Champions League game either — we won the stage last season were rewarded with PSG in the next round.
If we lose to United at home, then we can all freak out.