Wednesday saw Liverpool fall to their 4th away defeat in a row losing to a terrific and dangerous Paris St. Germain side.
An ultra-defensive and cautious performance for the Reds’ felt like damage limitation from the off and served as a stark reminder of just how far we’ve fallen this season.
With 5 at the back and all of our focus on not conceding goals, it wasn’t a classic Liverpool performance in the Champions League.
Arne Slot set us out with a specific game plan so how well did we do at executing that vision and were there any bright sparks on under the Parisian night sky?
Giorgi Marmadashvili - 7
Being set out the way we were, Giorgi was always going to be busy. We set our defenses out early against arguably the best attacking team in Europe, so naturally, chances were going to be created.
Given the circumstances, I thought he played well. Unlucky with the deflection on the first goal and made some smart stops to prevent it from getting embarrassing.
Ibou Konate - 4
To put it kindly, he can be an absolute liability. This is probably Ibou’s nightmare opponent on paper. A fluid team that is littered with pacey players and runners from deep.
Ibou struggles tracking one player at the best of times, but when it could be one of 3 or 4 at any given moment, he’s lost. Constantly pulled out of position and tried his best to give a pen away at the end. 4 is generous here.
Virgil van Dijk - 5
Absolutely not used to a back 5, but none of them w​ere really. We were holding a line like Virg was 5 years younger than he is and was caught out a lot in the final 25 minutes once his legs started to go a little.
A 'past his prime' centre half against attackers, just reaching their peaks or not far off it. A recipe for disaster, really.
Joe Gomez - 7
Our best outfield player by some distance. Settled nicely into his right-sided centre back role and kept things pretty solid with Kerkez.
There was a reason PSG were focusing the majority of their attacks down their left hand side. They viewed our left-hand side as stronger, and that’s down to the work ​Gomez put in. Tackled and blocked well, did his job.
Jeremie Frimpong - 4
Offered nothing going forward and looked incredibly shaky when on the back foot. At Leverkusen, he was byline to byline, which is why I thought we might see something special from him tonight.
He’s either out of position or scrambling back in a lame attempt to halt a counter. I’m not sure where his best position is because he’s a better attacker than he is a defender, but he isn’t great at the aforementioned either.
Milos Kerkez - 6
Same story as Gomez, really. Had a job and stuck to it. Popped up all along the left-hand side and handled Hakimi very well. Got a little bit of joy out of Doue and Kvaratskhelia, but even the best in the world can only keep those two quiet for so long.Â
Ryan Gravenberch - 5
Another game comes and goes for Grav. Another game of ‘where was the Grav of last season?’. Hard to pinpoint where it’s going wrong, as his play out of the press last year was sublime.
This year, he’s engulfed by it, and as a result, it looks like his confidence has taken a knock. Just another player in red that isn’t really doing much of anything.
Alexis Mac Allister - 6
In the opening minutes, he looked like a deer in the headlights. Booted every ball that came his way for the thrown-in, even with options around him.
He grew into the game through and actually tried playing out of the back on occasion. Rarely joined the attack, but then again, we rarely had one.
Dominik Szoboszlai - 5.5
Played in the false nine for the entire match and didn’t really know how and where to impact the game.
He ran when he was supposed to and seemingly tried to apply Slot’s brand of pressure, but chasing the opposition keeper down every now and then doesn’t have an impact on a football match. Quiet night for our best player this season.
Florian Wirtz - 5
We can all see this isn’t the player we paid for. Whilst we all have our opinions on why we aren’t seeing the best of Flo, that doesn’t excuse a performance like this. Lazy passes, weak first touches and created zero forward momentum.
Whilst fingers can be pointed at the set-up, having 0 shots on target for 90 minutes isn’t good enough, and he’s our playmaker. Regardless of the state of things, you still need to try to make a play.
Hugo Ekitike - 4
Maybe with Isak back, it’ll light a fire under Hugo because that was one of his worst performances in a Liverpool shirt in ​a recent history​ of below par games.
Whilst he shows for the ball regularly, his inability to play any kind of simple pass means we lose the ball and losing the ball cheaply to this team is criminal and usually devastating.
Our two best attackers went missing on what could have been a ‘smash and grab’ kind of night. You can’t steal a result if you don’t look interested.
Subs:
Liverpool attempted 33 passes once the substitutions were made in the 78th minute of the game, of which they made 24 successfully. It is impossible to rate or score any of these latecomers as they didn’t have any time on the ball to do anything.
Curtis Jones - N/A
Alexander Isak - N/A
Andy Robertson - N/A
Cody Gakpo - N/A
Trey Nyoni- N/A
Whilst it’s a result we all expected, to keep losing in this manner isn’t something we’re used to, and some fans are certainly through tolerating it.
Barring another Anfield miracle, we’ll be out of all competitions in 6 days time, and our endgame becomes trying not to be as bad as Chelsea, Villa and United.
The sooner this season is over, the better. Is it time to move on from Arne? Ask me again in 6 days and I’ll let you know.