Jamie Carragher has said that Liverpool won’t retain their Premier League title unless they fix one recurring issue which has troubled them this season.
After eight top-flight matches this term, the defending champions have conceded 11 goals in the division. At the equivalent stage of 2024/25, they’d only let in three, and it took them until the 14th game to ship 11 goals in the title-winning campaign.
The Reds have been breached twice in five of their first eight league matches in 2025/26, with two in each of the three successive defeats they’ve suffered domestically over the past month.
Carragher: Liverpool won’t retain the title unless they tighten up
Speaking on Sky Sports yesterday evening after the 1-2 loss to Manchester United, Carragher bluntly stated that Liverpool must stem the tide of goals against them if they’re to have any hope of defending the title.
The pundit said: “Manchester United had chances in the first half to go [further] ahead. Liverpool are just not at the races at all defensively. Until they fix that, they can’t win the league.”
How many goals are Liverpool on track to concede this season?
It’s undeniable that Liverpool have been far more brittle this season than last, and their concession tally could easily be even higher – think back to the multitude of saves from Alisson Becker in the first half away to Crystal Palace a few weeks ago.
Surprisingly, only five teams have a better xG against tally than the champions’ 9.2, but nine sides have conceded fewer goals than Slot’s men, who’ve shipped twice as many in the past three league games alone as Arsenal have since the start of the campaign (FBref).
The Gunners deserve credit for being so miserly at the back, in stark contrast to how the Reds look like they could concede every time an opponent crosses the halfway line.
At their current rate, Liverpool are on track to end the Premier League season with 52 goals conceded. They let in 41 last term, but nine of those came after the title had already been secured, prior to which the concession rate was 0.94 per game (it currently stands at 1.37).
Our chances of top-flight glory in 2013/14 were undermined by defensive frailties (we let in 50 goals that year), and it’s impossible to disagree with Carragher that until Slot and his players tighten up substantially, the prospects of another party at Anfield next May are beginning to look slim.
You can watch Slot’s full post-Manchester United press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
When you keep losing games confidence drains from the players, if we lose again on Wednesday in the champions league it will be five defeats in a row, that hasn’t happened at Liverpool football club for 72 years. 1953. It’s more than just about defending, it’s in midfield and up front. If it continues the manager will lose the dressing room and then the owners FSG have a decision to make. I said last season it was the worst ever Liverpool team to win the league, it was won with what klopp left rather than anything slot did. It was the weakest premier league ever, with the worst Manchester United team, Manchester city team ect. We were carried by individual brilliance from Salah rather than being a top team. Look at the way we lost against Fulham, Brighton, Chelsea, ect last season. This has been coming, it was there in pre season, no identity, poor tactically, and a manager with no charisma , slot was never tested in the Dutch league, it goes to prove you can spend 450 million, but without a top class manager, it means nothing. Get klopp back or watch the decline.
LFC doesn’t sack its managers in a knee-jerk manner when the going gets tough.
We work out the truth and apply the correct solution and yes, sometimes that is changing manager, but I don’t think so yet.
MR21 appears to believe that simply repeating spun facts ad infinitum will bring fans over to his way of thinking.
ei. If one repeats a lie often enough, people will eventually believe it.
LFC fans suffered this over a series of Hillsborough cover-ups and we are suffering a U.S. President applying the same tactic to get his way also.
How do genuine Reds fans counter the above tactic ?
Do we go onto other teams’ fan w/sites and troll them with insult or something more sinister as with Misty ?
Doesn’t that make the whole worse though until it’s toxic and nobody knows what to believe ?