Are Liverpool Falling Apart? Reds Lose Control in the Air, on the Ground, and Possibly in the Title Race
The more cunning among us might have enjoyed a few things from a trip to Brentford and an effort to avoid a fourth consecutive Premier League loss after all the hoopla this week about the numerous diabolical methods teams have played against Liverpool during their recent run.
It would be easy to scoff when, for example, Michael Kayode’s already notorious long throws resulted in a goal for Liverpool. Perhaps you prefer Brentford’s more understated charms.
In reality, they scored through a scorching counterattack in which Kevin Schade coolly converted a beautiful, ground-level pass from Mikkel Damsgaard.
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And if you wanted to really drive home the big laughs, you might want the game to end in a wild 11-minute injury break.
This is always a particularly exciting part of any Liverpool game these days, with the increasingly disorganised champions trying in vain to salvage a single point by aiming long balls at the head of Virgil van Dijk, their makeshift striker, rather than any of the other players in their shiny new £200 million attack.
However, to expect to witness all of the above in the most remarkable match of Liverpool’s increasingly remarkable season, both positively and negatively, you would have had to be extremely greedy.
All of those characteristics, and so much more, were present in this game. Liverpool was horrible, and Brentford was amazing. once more.
This streak is beginning to resemble the season-ending antics that Manchester City, the reigning champions, were engaging in at this time last year.
Liverpool simply appears to be lost; they are overwhelmed by anxiety and uncertainty all the time and are completely incapable of maintaining any kind of control over what seems to be any football match.
After the awful match against Manchester United last week, Van Dijk’s problems are still ongoing.
He appears to be completely unaware of his own role in the pandemonium that is going on around him these days, and this is especially true when Milos Kerkez is involved.
Early in the second half, Brentford had the opportunity to re-establish their two-goal advantage from the penalty spot thanks to his wayward kick at Dango Ouattara.
It was the kind of careless error you just didn’t see from him. He was fortunate to avoid giving up another penalty and possibly more punishment for what appeared to be an elbow during that hectic and tense game conclusion.
For the sake of completeness, it’s also worth noting that Mo Salah scored one of the season’s goals on an evening that was otherwise fully consumed by the funk that has gripped him, giving us a wild and dramatic ending.
In one ridiculously elegant play that was completely at odds with everything else he did, he used one foot to bring down an uncomfortable high ball and the other to slam a half-volley into the roof of the net. It was the most stunning individual moment of a spectacular game.
Including bending himself into unfeasible positions in an attempt to bring his left foot to a late, late half-chance when the known world and all of the laws of physics informed you that your only chance was to swing your right boot.
However, the result is that we haven’t even gotten around to mentioning Simon Hooper’s discovery of two minutes of extra time.
At the end of the first half for Kerkez who was the worst player on the pitch both before and after that point to get Liverpool back into the game before halftime, and Hooper’s subsequent injury that prevented him from playing in the second half.
There was some activity, as we mentioned. The end result, however, is a fourth consecutive league loss for Liverpool, who were five points ahead of Manchester Actual United a month ago but are now in sixth place, one point behind them, and face the very real possibility of dropping into the mid-table abyss by tomorrow’s end of play.
As Sunderland and United did today, any or all of Tottenham, Crystal Palace, and Aston Villa might pass them.
Premier league this season cannot be predict by anybody, even most of the pundit that made predictions about who’s likely to win the league, have now been making correction.
And since it would at least result in Arsenal losing, Palace defeating them might be the best outcome they can hope for.
Liverpool will trail the top by seven points if Arsenal wins.In four games, a 12-point swing. The current situation is unusual.
Although Liverpool’s five consecutive victories at the beginning of the season may have been a little too impromptu, we never imagined they would be as cunning as they have been.
Not only is something going wrong, but it’s going wrong in every manner. The manager has started saying absurd things, the new recruits haven’t fit in, and the old, dependable players are having trouble, which makes the subsequent events on the pitch even more hilarious.
We all enjoyed it, but Arne Slots’s manager’s remarks about his team’s inability to play well when the ball is in the air before a trip to Brentford were a surefire way to spark controversy and subsequent mockery.
At least he couldn’t gripe about opponents altering their strategy against his club after that first goal.
Furthermore, there is still clear room for the already startlingly real problem to worsen.
Before a resurgent Aston Villa in the league, Crystal Palace, a team that has already defeated Liverpool twice this season, will play in the Carabao.
After that, there will be a huge week that cannot be approached with any relish at the moment, with a visit from Real Madrid followed by a trip to Manchester City before the interleague.
As shocking as it is to say after witnessing this most recent heart-stopping loss, there’s a good chance that things may worsen before they improve, if they improve at all.
