Three defeats in eight days have punctured Liverpool’s aura – just months after a title-winning debut season for Arne Slot and the most expensive transfer window of any side in football history. More than £240m on Alexander Isak (£126m) and Florian Wirtz (£116m) alone was meant to raise the ceiling; instead, the floor looks like it’s given way. As Arsenal reclaim top spot, here’s a hard look at what’s failed – and why.
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1) Klopp’s chaos-control to sterile Slot
Last season, Slot largely rode Klopp’s structure with a tidier, calmer on-ball approach. This season he’s tried to imprint a more possession-heavy, positional game – without the automatisms to support it. The result: long spells of sterile circulation, fewer penalty-area touches, more shots from distance, and brittle transitions the second possession breaks. When Liverpool can’t throttle games territorially, they look between identities – neither Klopp-chaotic nor Slot-settled.
Symptom: Matches turning “end-to-end” (as Jamie Carragher put it), late drama masking structural looseness – until the luck runs out.
2) The right side: Salah’s freedom, everyone else’s fire drill
Slot is giving Mohamed Salah attacking freedom (fine), but the coverage behind him isn’t coherent. With Jeremie Frimpong still adapting, Conor Bradley recovering rhythm, and Dominik Szoboszlai moonlighting at right-back, opponents keep finding 2-v-1s down Liverpool’s right. When a midfielder shuffles wide to help, the half-spaces in front of the centre-backs open up. Chelsea exploited it; others will, too.
Fix: Decide the profile at RB (defender first, runner second), lock it in, then design the midfield tilt around Salah’s high starting position – not on the fly.
3) Full-back trade-offs on both flanks
On the left, Milos Kerkez offers thrust but has wobbled in duels and decision-making. On the right, using Frimpong higher or Szoboszlai deeper has been a band-aid, not a plan. Under Klopp, Trent/Robertson were plug-and-play creators; now Liverpool are unsure which profiles they are building around. Until the flanks are stabilised, the back line will keep getting stretched horizontally.
4) Centre-back instability – Konaté’s rut, knock-on effects
Ibrahima Konaté’s form has dipped: rash stepping out, loose passing, late reactions in transition. With Giovanni Leoni sidelined long-term and Marc Guéhi never arriving, depth is thin (Joe Gomez the only like-for-like cover). When the CB next to Virgil van Dijk is uncertain, the entire press/line height calculation becomes conservative – and the midfield gets dragged backwards.
Fix: Short term, simplify Konaté’s tasks (fewer risky carries, clearer rest-defence spacing). Medium term, rotate ruthlessly if lapses persist.
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5) Florian Wirtz: £116m of promise, little punch
Wirtz isn’t necessarily bad – he’s just not yet impactful. He’s touching the ball plenty in the middle third, but Liverpool aren’t feeding him in advantage zones often enough, and his off-ball graft is sapping his on-ball sharpness. Worse, pushing him high/central has squeezed Salah’s interior lanes without compensating patterns.
Fix: Pick a lane. Either:
- Make Wirtz the left half-space hub (with a true RB behind Salah and a passer like Curtis Jones inside), or
- Park him as a pure 10 only when the wide structure is locked.
6) The Isak and Ekitike conundrum
Isak arrived undercooked after a messy move, then was thrust into a side still learning its new patterns. He needs rhythm and service in the box, not hopeful wide deliveries or 40-yard link jobs. Ekitike looked the sharper plug-in before his own setback; without a reliable nine at full tilt, Liverpool’s “control then crush” model breaks down in the final third.
Fix: Start the fitter nine (Ekitike, when available). For Isak, pick managed minutes with targeted service (low crosses, cutbacks, near-post runs) until his conditioning and timing catch up.
7) Midfield tempo without incision
Liverpool’s possession share is up; their penalty-area touches aren’t. Too much side-to-side, not enough line-breaking passes on time. With Szoboszlai dragged to full-back and Alexis Mac Allister/Gravenberch toggling roles, there’s no consistent interior passer to hit Wirtz between lines or to feed early diagonals to the right.
Fix: Reintroduce a dedicated line-splitter (Jones profile) and a clearer six/eight division. Fewer touches, more vertical passes. If the structure yields one extra good box entry per 10 minutes, the attack breathes.
8) Margins gone cold – and a reality check
The start of the season’s late-goal habit disguised flaws; three straight losses (Palace, Galatasaray, Chelsea) expose them. Add Alisson’s knock, the RB carousel, Konaté’s dip, and new-man acclimatisation, and you get a team playing like a rebuild, not a champion in cruise.
What Slot must own – now
- Pick a right-back and live with it for a month. Stop shuffling the deck.
- Define Salah’s protection (midfielder tilt and CB spacing) so his freedom doesn’t cost territory.
- Give Wirtz a fixed space and a passer to find him.
- Stagger the front three to restore central occupation for cutbacks/second balls.
- Harden rest-defence: one FB goes, one stays; six holds; nearest eight tucks.
- Be ruthless with underperformers – reputation can’t pick the XI.
Liverpool aren’t miles off, but they’re not themselves. The faster Slot stops chasing “his” idea of the team and starts building the best version of this squad, the quicker the slide stops. Arsenal won’t wait.
