If Liverpool are to avoid a fourth consecutive Premier League defeat tonight, they’ll have to do it the hard way.
There were just five minutes on the clock at the Gtech Community Stadium when the Reds failed to deal with a long throw-in from Brentford’s Michael Kayode, and Dango Ouattara duly took advantage to open the scoring from close range.
It’s the sixth successive game in which Arne Slot’s team have conceded the first goal, and it continues the trend of going behind early in domestic action, having also been caught out by Eddie Nketiah (nine minutes), Moises Caicedo (14 minutes) and Bryan Mbeumo (just over 60 seconds) in the past month.
Liverpool match unwelcome feat from 30 years ago
The ever-alert Opta football data editor Michael Reid was typically quick to come out with a statistic which’ll make for grim reading for everyone of a Liverpool persuasion.
Shortly after Ouattara scored, he posted on X: ‘Liverpool have conceded in the opening 15 minutes of 4 consecutive Premier League games for the first time since January 1996.’
It’s become a horrific and unsustainable habit for Liverpool
If there’s one consolation for the Reds, in that sequence almost 30 years ago – which bridged the New Year midway though the 1995/96 season – Roy Evans’ side didn’t actually lose any of the four games in which they fell behind early to Arsenal (3-1), Chelsea (2-2), Nottingham Forest (4-2) and Sheffield Wednesday (1-1).
Slot’s team showed their powers of recovery in midweek by responding to the concession of Rasmus Kristensen’s opener with five goals of their own, and they came from behind to win on numerous occasions in romping to the Premier League title last term.
However, with the champions dropping to sixth in the table by kick-off in west London, to fall behind so early on tonight will have infuriated the head coach, especially considering how poorly Liverpool dealt with the set-piece scenario which has yielded so much joy for Brentford.
The Reds left it late to win on their previous visit to the Gtech Community Stadium nine months ago, and at the time of writing there’s still ample opportunity for them to strike back and leave with victory.
Nonetheless, the habit of going behind in the first 15 minutes is unsustainable if we’re to even secure Champions League qualification, never mind trying to retain our title.
The main culprit for Liverpool’s defensive woes is the overrated Virgil Van Dijk. Unlike the centre halves of other leading Premier League teams, Van Dijk always shies away from making tackles, thereby putting pressure on Konate and the other defenders. That stupid pushing habit of his just led to a penalty. Replace Van Dijk with Gomez and watch the difference. Drop cry baby Salah and improve the team’s morale.
We have the best attacking talent in the premier league, but if you can’t defend then it’s irrelevant. The system has changed from 433 to a 4231 to accommodate wirtz, we have too many lightweight players which make us weaker from set pieces. If slot keeps playing szoblozlai and Jones protecting the back four then there’s more pain coming. We are not good enough without the ball, it was there last season, but salah through individual class got us out of jail. We won’t get away with it this season. Fsg need to spend big again in January on a central defender who can defend set piece’s and a defensive midfielder who can protect the defence, otherwise we won’t win anything, even with the best attacking players.
We played 4-2-3-1 last season even before Wirtz cane
Mo Salah the most over paid player in the premier
over £400k for a min’s work what a joke drop the dead donkey he is not worth the money we would have been far better off playing the team as we did in Germany not good enough from most of the team.
Liverpool’s problem isn’t the playing body,is absolutely the ineffective of the coach and his technical team, they just lack the idea as to how manage the team tactically they don’t know what they are about , the team’s attacking is slow making easy for the opponent to defend, they don’t tackle or press and any time the opponent gets the ball it’s easy for them to get opportunity to shoot, and the worst of all and the annoying thing is the coach and his technical team don’t know how to defend set pieces, this is unpardonable, look there are so many technical lapses in the team, which needs to be corrected as soon as possible else things will get worse because the coach is confused and doesn’t know what he is about, I really don’t know what does at the training grounds. This coach cannot motive the players to put their best.
I am begging Slot to start Hugo as natural no.9 in a 4-3-3 formation