If you\u2019re going to be a team that has some pretty deep and fundamental flaws with no obvious solution beyond time and patience, then it\u2019s definitely worth taking the Liverpool approach.<\/p>\n
Having those problems to address while sitting flawlessly atop the league table<\/strong><\/a>, having already beaten your main rival for the title and cruising six points clear of the only other truly feasible contender definitely feels like\u00a0a better approach than, say, the Manchester United one where results are just as wretched as the performances<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n But there are reasons to suspect Liverpool might not quite have everything figured out the way a perfect start to the Premier League season for a new-look team might suggest.<\/p>\n Clearly, we\u2019re not saying anything is f*cked here. The fact Liverpool have emerged from an unconvincing start is itself impressive; if it does click, the rest of the league might as well pack it all in.<\/p>\n But the sense of something feeling not quite right is tangible. This is not a four-game winning run that looks unstoppable. There is no runaway train feel to Liverpool this season like the start of last season.<\/p>\n Most obviously, as everyone has already noted, there\u2019s the timings of Liverpool\u2019s winning goals. Dominik Szoboszlai\u2019s worldie free-kick against Arsenal in the 83rd\u00a0minute is the earliest decisive goal Liverpool have scored this season.<\/p>\n Two of their winning goals have come deep into stoppage time, and twice already they\u2019ve had to go to the well again after giving up a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n The glass-half-full interpretation of all this is that it shows Liverpool to be a champion team with unshakeable belief and determination and big giant balls, capable of getting the job done no matter what setbacks befall them along the way.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s clearly something in that. The \u2018hallmark of champions\u2019 clich\u00e9 about winning when not playing well obviously has truth to it. But it\u2019s supposed to be about digging out results on those occasions when the performance, for whatever reason, just isn\u2019t quite there. Not about digging out desperate late winners in every single game from your actual regular performance level.<\/p>\n Because that, obviously, is unsustainable. So the issue for Liverpool now comes in discovering whether this is who they actually are, in which case you have the attention of Arsenal and Manchester City and Chelsea and, heaven help us all, maybe even at this point Spurs, or whether what Liverpool have managed to do is stumble their way through the inevitable teething problems of a new-look, reshaped team while managing to avoid any actual tangible loss at all.<\/p>\n If it\u2019s the latter, job done. The league is pretty much theirs if they start playing as well as that group of players ought to be capable of playing under a manager who has already proved himself extremely capable of extracting peak performance from a talented group of players.<\/p>\n What if it\u2019s not that, though? What if it\u2019s the first one? What if there is a bigger problem that all that dazzling summer recruitment can\u2019t quite fix?<\/p>\n For all the work they\u2019ve done, for all the thrilling attacking players they\u2019ve signed, do Liverpool still have a Trent problem?<\/p>\n And if they do, does that have the knock-on effect of creating a Mo Salah problem? And from there, you\u2019re quickly at something very integral indeed.<\/p>\n Trent Alexander-Arnold\u2019s departure was tough for Liverpool to take, obviously. He\u2019s a brilliant player, a local player, and Liverpool is a club with a self-fulfilling mythology and lore that doesn\u2019t react well to being pricked by reality. The idea any player \u2013 a homegrown one least of all \u2013 might actually prefer to play football for someone else, even if that someone else is Actual Real Madrid \u2013 pops the bubble.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s tish and fipsy, really. It doesn\u2019t actually affect Liverpool in any way. Losing Alexander-Arnold the footballer is far more vital than having to reconsider an idea.<\/p>\n He is, essentially, irreplaceable. Arne Slot is yet to find any combination of players, new and existing, to replace his overall contribution in the round.<\/p>\n The dazzling goalscoring and assisting form of Salah last season made him look like Liverpool\u2019s cheat code, but perhaps the real cheat code was the playmaking right-back all along. It\u2019s not a new thought, but with the emotional noise that surrounded Alexander-Arnold\u2019s exit, was enough thought actually given to how it would affect actual things that matter?<\/p>\n