Liverpool may well be the defending Premier League champions and leaders but back-to-back defeats has raised questions for head coach Arne Slot to answer
Arne Slot’s Liverpool side head to Chelsea on Saturday on the back of back-to-back defeats(Image: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Heavy is the crown. Liverpool may be Premier League leaders in the defence of last season’s hard-earned title, but the knives are being sharpened as they face their toughest examination of a difficult week.
The Reds are at Chelsea on Saturday evening aiming to avoid suffering a third successive defeat for the first time under Arne Slot after their Premier League and Champions League hopes were dented by setbacks at Crystal Palace and Galatasaray respectively.
Injuries, key players losing form and integrating a raft of summer signings have all contributed to inconsistent displays, with Anfield legend Jamie Carragher claiming in midweek Liverpool don’t appear a top team at present.
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Slot, though, has dismissed suggestions his team are suffering from multiple problems but admits they aren’t helping that perception by conceding soft goals, a failing that has contributed to just four clean sheets in 21 games.
“In the last two games we’ve lost, we’ve lost a few very simple balls and that adds to the thought, ‘wow, are we playing poor?’ as we let ourselves down,” said the Liverpool boss.
“We were 2-0 up against Bournemouth (on the opening day), very, very, very good game, much better than we’ve played in the second half of the season.
“But then we concede two, and everybody is starting to be more negative about that as well. And I can come up with a few other examples. Against Atletico Madrid, it was an unbelievable start of the game but then they come back in the game, and all of a sudden the general opinion is not as positive anymore.
“There are enough positives to take from this season. If you talk about open play goals, we’ve done much better in the first part of this season than the second part of last season.
“But there are also things we definitely have to improve. I’m the first one to acknowledge that.”
Tuesday’s 1-0 reverse in Turkey was only the fifth time in 66 games Liverpool have failed to score under Slot, who concedes the chopping and changing in midfield isn’t helping £116million man Florian Wirtz adapt after another fitful display in midweek.
“We’ve brought in a very different midfielder than we had (in the number 10 role) last season, which we think we needed because the amount of goals we found from open play in the first part of last season and the second part of last season, there’s a big, big difference,” he said.
“The different set-up in midfield (this season) is not only because I wanted it, it was a lot of times also because we needed because of the injuries or suspensions we had.
“You can mainly improve a team by meetings, individual or with the team, and not as much on a training ground, but the best way to improve a team is play a game, because there you can see the issues and there you can try to adjust it.
“But we haven’t had much training time with the new set-up when we had time to train. Until September 1 you have quite a lot of training time, but players came in later as we all know and players were injured in that period of time.”
Liverpool were beaten only once in all competitions during the first half of last season, but lost eight times after the New Year with Slot conceding teams have started to adapt more successfully to his tactics.
“A new manager came in (at Liverpool) and everybody thought, ‘oh, let’s start to play against Liverpool!’,” he said. “And teams played in a completely different way in the first half of the season against us than they did when we were top of the league after half of the season and when we were top of the Champions League.
“And I can see this going now into this part of this season. We have to find answers to that.”
While only Manchester City have scored more goals from open play than Liverpool in the Premier League this season, the Reds are being hampered by difficulties from set-pieces.
Dominik Szoboszlai’s thumping free-kick against Arsenal is the only dead-ball situation from which the Reds have netted in the top flight, compared to seven for Arsenal and five for Saturday’s opponents Chelsea.
“We’ve unlocked teams in the second half of the season by scoring seven corner kicks,” said Slot.
“The team we face on Saturday have scored more than 50% of their goals, although they are on eight points, from set-pieces. The number two of the league has scored 60% of their goals from set pieces.
“So they have the same issues if they face a low block, but the way to unlock a low block is we have to do better, we have to find the ways of unlocking that, maybe scoring the first chance we get. But that’s not the only thing.”