It can get exhausting, following top clubs where the media and fans pronounce them in “crisis” every time they lose three games in a row. Then again, it’s hard to apply any other term to Liverpool’s situation right now.
They’ve lost nine of their last 12 matches in all competitions, with impressive wins over Aston Villa in the Premier League and Real Madrid in the Champions League followed by demoralizing losses to Manchester City and Nottingham Forest in the Prem as well as PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League.
There haven’t even been any face-saving draws in that stretch of play, and they can’t even plausibly blame bad luck or bad officiating for the last three defeats. Those came by a combined score of 10-1, and the international break did nothing to arrest the slide.
Cody Gakpo has nailed Liverpool's biggest flaw
Thus it was that Dutch winger Cody Gakpo told soccer journalist Fabrizio Romano: “I don’t know where [our resilience] has gone, but we should try to get back to that. We know that we are in a difficult position. We have to stick together.” He said this before his 90 minutes of action against his former team yielded three ineffectual shots for an expected goals rating of 0.31.
The woes clearly start with the offense. We shouldn’t underestimate the difficulties Liverpool had this offseason, losing an entire starting lineup’s worth of forwards after Luis Díaz and Dárwin Núñez left via transfer and Diogo Jota passed away in a car accident.
While the Reds were able to bring in adequate replacements with Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitiké, many teams would struggle to rebuild chemistry after so much turnover.
And yet there’s no denying that despite their far superior talent, Liverpool were easily outplayed by the Dutch opponents, with only Dominik Szoboszlai gaining any traction in the midfield. Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch were overrun by Joey Veerman and Mauro Júnior, and Curtis Jones at right-back could not handle Ivan Perišić and Couhaib Driouech.
If we could chalk up Liverpool’s bad results to faulty tactics by the coach Arne Slot, that would be one thing. Alas, the malaise appears to run deeper, as neither the veteran players nor the new arrivals have been able to give this team a sense of direction.
Bygone Liverpool teams could count on the inspirational presence of Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher or Coach Jürgen Klopp to pick them up when things went against them and urge them on when the game was going their way. That mysterious winning mentality has disappeared, and despite Gakpo’s urging, there doesn’t seem to be an easy place to find it again.