Liverpool’s blip is becoming a full-blown crisis as manager Arne Slot urgently seeks answers after the Premier League champions suffered a fourth straight defeat for the first time in more than a decade.
The Reds lost 2-1 to Manchester United on Sunday — the first time their bitter rivals have won at Anfield since January 2016.
Liverpool rode their luck in a seven-game winning run at the start of the season, boosted by a flurry of late goals, but an expected improvement in performances has failed to materialise.
They have now lost four consecutive games in all competitions for the first time since November 2014 when Brendan Rodgers was manager.
AFP Sport looks at the serious issues that Slot must address to save Liverpool’s season.
Salah slump
Mohamed Salah looks a pale shadow of the man who terrorised defences last season on his way to winning the Premier League’s Golden Boot award.
The “Egyptian King”, so often the fulcrum of Liverpool’s attack, has scored just one goal from open play in the Premier League this season, on the opening weekend.
On Sunday he was guilty of missing two big chances against United.
The forward was left out of the starting line-up in the recent Champions League defeat at Galatasaray and, starkly, was hauled off on Sunday even as Liverpool chased an equaliser.
Slot will hope it is just a temporary loss for form for a player who signed a new two-year contract in April but there must be concerns that, at 33, his best days are behind him.
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, now a Sky Sports pundit, says Salah should no longer have a guaranteed spot every week.
“I don’t think Salah should be starting every game right now, certainly away from home, with the form he’s in,” he said on Sky.
“Would he be OK with that? Probably not. But when you get to a certain age you have to understand that, especially when you’re not playing well, where’s your argument?”
Struggling signings
Slot chose to go big in the summer transfer window, splashing out more than $450 million ($604 million) on new signings.
The club twice broke their own transfer record to bring in playmaker Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen and forward Alexander Isak from Newcastle.
But neither player is yet to register a Premier League goal.
Hugo Ekitike, another big-money arrival, has made a splash but the Frenchman now appears to be behind the misfiring Isak in the pecking order.
Liverpool’s substantial spending on forwards was partly driven by the death of Diogo Jota in a car crash in July.
His absence is the elephant in the room at a club still coming to terms with the absence of the 28-year-old Portugal international.
At the other end of the pitch, new arrival Milos Kerkez has struggled to settle at left-back, where he has been preferred to veteran Andy Robertson, and Jeremie Frimpong has failed to nail down his spot on the other flank.
Defensive crisis
Could Liverpool’s failure to sign central defender Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace on transfer deadline day cost them the Premier League title?
Since the beginning of May, Liverpool have conceded two more more goals in more Premier League games than any other side, doing so in eight of their 12 league matches.
Slot’s men have let in 11 goals in their eight league games, in stark contrast to just three by Premier League leaders Arsenal.
Kerkez and Frimpong have struggled to fill the shoes of Robertson and the departed Trent Alexander-Arnold in the full-back positions.
Centre-back Ibrahima Konate has come under sustained fire for his poor performances and even the usually imperious captain Virgil van Dijk was caught out in the build-up to Bryan Mbeumo’s opening goal on Sunday.
Guehi has told Crystal Palace he will not sign a new deal at the club, meaning he could leave in January or at the end of the season.
But even if the England defender chooses Liverpool over other potential suitors, it could be too little, too late.
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© Agence France-Presse
