{"id":482084,"date":"2025-10-08T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/482084\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T05:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T05:00:16","slug":"three-tight-losses-and-big-lessons-as-liverpools-struggles-may-spark-a-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/482084\/","title":{"rendered":"Three tight losses and big lessons as Liverpool\u2019s struggles may spark a revival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool got off to a perfect start this season but even the most ardent Liverpool fan would have admitted they were rarely at their best. <\/p>\n

However, six wins from six in the League and Europe was an extreme positive but reality hit with a bump.<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace is never an easy place to go, especially facing a side who hadn’t lost a game in five months. <\/p>\n

A very poor first 85 minutes look to had been saved by Chiesa’s late equaliser but Liverpool got a taste of their own injury time medicine as Eddie Nketiah gave Palace all three points with the final kick of the game. <\/p>\n

Liverpool then travelled to a hostile Istanbul as they faced Galatasaray in the Champions League. <\/p>\n

Albeit decided by an extraordinarily harsh penalty, Liverpool suffered defeat for the second match in a row and with a very below par performance. <\/p>\n

Chelsea is never a place you want to visit when you’re on a bad run but a patched up Blues side looked like a side Liverpool could beat. <\/p>\n

After battling back from a goal behind and missing several chances to steal a win, Liverpool suffered more late heartbreak, by conceding in the final minute. <\/p>\n

So what’s gone wrong? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Firstly it’s clear Slot is struggling with his strongest side, with the abundance of fresh talent through the door in the summer. <\/p>\n

As well as having two major strikers, Slot has added a very expensive asset to a title winning midfield and has two right-backs fighting for one spot. <\/p>\n

\"Moises<\/p>\n

Chelsea v Liverpool – Premier League | Justin Setterfield\/GettyImages<\/p>\n

New players will almost always need time to adjust but many forget it’s also hard for the long serving players to adapt to the new players. <\/p>\n

Florian Wirtz is an out and out number ten, something Liverpool haven’t truly had since Philippe Coutinho. Liverpool also have two new forwards who are more direct number nines than the deeper lying forwards such as Nunez and Firmino<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Slot is also struggling with finding player’s ideal roles. Dominik Szoboszlai has played in both attacking and defensive midfield as well as several stints at right-back – often in the same game. <\/p>\n

He has also tried Wirtz centrally and on the left and even small moments deeper in midfield. <\/p>\n

Perhaps most frustratingly, certain players look far below the standard from previous seasons. Ibou Konate has had several extremely abject performances of late and with Liverpool’s lack of defensive options, that looks a bigger worry. <\/p>\n

Alexis Mac Allister has also struggled to hit the heights of last season and even Mo Salah looks very frustrated at his work so far this season.<\/p>\n

\"Galatasaray-vs-Liverpool-UEFA-Champions-League-2025-26-MD2\"<\/p>\n

Galatasaray-vs-Liverpool-UEFA-Champions-League-2025-26-MD2 | BURAK BASTURK\/GettyImages<\/p>\n

Silver Linings<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is certainly no need to panic however. Galatasaray <\/a>was certainly more unexpected but all three matches were extremely difficult on paper and all could have easily gone the other way. <\/p>\n

There is also the aforementioned adjustment period, as the new players continue to build their new bonds. Fitness is also slowly improving, especially with players like Alexander Isak, who had no pre-season at all. <\/p>\n

Overall and most importantly, Liverpool are just one point behind the league leaders and still have the one win in the Champions League. They also have more points at this stage than they did when they ran away with the title last season! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool got off to a perfect start this season but even the most ardent Liverpool fan would have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-482084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115336788677152177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}