Liverpool's miserable October continued on Wednesday when they were eliminated from the Carabao Cup by who else but Crystal Palace.
That defeat made six losses from the last seven, with a 5-goal win in the Champions League over Frankfurt looking more and more like the outlier, squeezed in there.
This poor run of form has not left Arne Slot in the best of lights as he has struggled to field a cohesive unit for a long time now. Injuries, new signings, departures and more have robbed the Dutchman of the living and breathing organism he inherited last season.
Let's take a look at some of the signs that Slot is playing a dangerous game with his current man-management and lineup selection.
1. Trusting the wrong guys, over and over
In every sport that has ever been played, coaches have always had a favorite player or two. That is obvious.
Now, this isn't a huge issue if those players are performing at a high level and leading the team to success both on and off the pitch. However, sometimes we see a player get stuck in a rut, but his coach allows him countless chances to come out of it.
Sometimes this process comes at the detriment of the overall success of everyone else. That's kind of where we are with Slot and the current Liverpool setup.
Anybody who has watched some Liverpool matches this season will tell you they still have not hit their best form, not even close.
Superstars like Mohamed Salah, Alexander Isak, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister have all left more than a little to be desired this season. Yet, Slot has insisted on repeatedly giving the former three in particular, a host of chances.
Obviously injuries and leadershp roles play a part here too. But, in the same breath, players like Federico Chiesa, Hugo Ekitike and Curtis Jones are pushed to the side no matter how well they play.
Chiesa in particular is a damning case for Slot as the Italian has been nothing but professional and productive when given chances. The Dutch coach just does not trust him to give him consistent ones.
In times of struggle, you need to change it up, and Arne is showing a stubbornness that was acceptable when results were coming, but now just looks plain bad.
2. Carabao Cup giveaway
When the lineups came out for Liverpool's Fourth Round EFL Cup match against Palace on Wednesday, it was very clear it was going to be a tough ask for the Reds.
Teenagers Kieran Morrison, Trey Nyoni, Rio Ngumoha all started while we saw appearances from Kaide Gordon, Amara Nallo (Ouch) and Trent Kone-Doherty.
With Calvin Ramsay called in at right-back and Andy Robertson as a captain from central defense, this felt very much like a preseason lineup to get some minutes against a quality side for the lads.
When in reality, it was a must-win fixture in a competition that this club has dominated more than any other English team in history. I get resting some players to clear their head during a rough stretch, but this felt like a step too far in the other direction.
In fairness to the youngsters, they played a valiant 40 minutes of football before inexperience took over and it was always going to be impossible to recover from there.
Crystal Palace looked like the veteran side that wanted to win and advance whereas it looked like Liverpool were waving the white flag on a competition to try and focus on other matters at hand.
3. Ill-defined player roles
Once Slot gets players on the pitch, there has been a clear disconnect with whatever his vision is and what we see during matches.
He's played players out of position, both from a necessity, see Dominik Szoboszlai at right-back, but also as he seemingly searches for something to connect.
He's largely put the shackles on bombing fullbacks Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong while in the same breath he has encouraged the likes of Ryan Gravenberch to move forward more. That in of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is no game-to-game consistency with what we are seeing lately.
The midfield has been a rotation of varying players pushing up, wide or back. Slot pushed all the right buttons last season, but it seems he can't find one during this stretch.
He's still a great coach, but it's clear the huge overhaul we saw this summer was underestimated in the kind of knock-on effect it would have on the club.
Slot has been playing a dangerous game lately, and he cannot afford any further slip-ups or this could spiral into something we don't want to think about.