Arne slot’s explanation of what his team needs to do before they can start to think about a title fight was not new. Slot, it is worth noting, did not make the statement. Prior to this incredible slide, Slot had never set his team a goal of “results after results after results”.In doing so, he cast his mind back 364 years to the end of what appeared to be another title challenge. Mikel Arteta’s team had just conceded more ground to the leaders after a 2-2 tie at Chelsea. It was also Arteta’s belief that it was too early to start talking about the title race, in which many expected his side to play a major role. From this point on, all that could be done was to “win,win,win,win,win,win,win,win,win,win,win,win and win”.History records that Arsenal failed to follow their manager’s orders. Only twice have they been able to “win, win win.” Arteta’s team never recovered the ground they lost in the first quarter of the season. They were a point behind the eight-point gap that Liverpool finds itself. The standards they set for themselves were unattainable. The gap between the two teams was too large and the players were unable to focus on the competitions that they were still in. You can already see how this could be a template used by Liverpool in 2025-2026. Arsenal and Manchester have better league fixtures between now and the Christmas holidays. However, a bad performance at London Stadium or an off-color finish against Robin Roefs could be enough to give them a shot. City To push away.
Andrew Robertson admitted that the next few months could be a slog. “We’ve set ourselves up for a big battle,” Robertson said after the 3-0 defeat in the Etihad. “But I don’t think that any of the teams are going to look at their league table until half way through.” We have to achieve that, but we also need to score more points consistently. Let’s then see how we do after Christmas or whatever. Focus on yourself and your performance.”I don’t think it’s possible to talk about the championship this early in the season. This is not something that’s being discussed in the changing rooms or anywhere else. We only need to go back to our levels, which we have proven we are capable of, especially in the two previous games. We will score more points if we can do this more often.”Selection troublesSomething has to drastically change with Liverpool. This could start at a tactical level. Slot’s team won two of their four clean sheets in 17 games by returning to the same template as last season. At the end of the last season, Slot himself expressed concern that his particular style of play might have been discovered by the opposition. Since Paris Saint-Germain passed them in the Champions League, the champions lost 40% of their matches. Although the hierarchies actions in the shop window might have made the problem worse for the moment, that’s not the point. They were there.
It was obvious that there were many problems. City They were brushed aside. Many would have thought that Liverpool was not up for the challenge, that the eight-day period had worn them out, and that they were too tired to fight. This is a very worrying sign, given that their opponents had played just 24 hours earlier. Slot took the blame himself for the first-half struggles.
Liverpool’s title defense over? Loss by Man City Real Madrid’s UCL win reveals alarming inconsistency
James Benge
“It was easy for the players to win duels if they were using the right tactics and game plan. That’s what I saw against Villa, and it’s what I saw against Madrid,” said he. We struggled a great deal with their bringing in so many players at the centre of the field and some of our players were unable to make good decisions. It wasn’t that my players didn’t want to duel. They had to run a great deal because [City] Were so much better at the ball than them.”Outside of possession, Liverpool tends to defend in a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-2-4 depending on whether Dominik zoboszlai’ is pushed into the frontline of the press. In the first-half, City Erling haaland, who dropped off the front line at times to add ballast, also found holes with great efficiency. Liverpool responded by putting more bodies in midfield. This left Conor Bradley defenseless, as Jeremy Doku threw Conor Bradley into the blender.
Only a select few teams can now do to Liverpool what near-peak performance could have done. City did. They are not all in the Premier League. Slot will win if, say, Nuno Santo wants to pack the middle in three weeks with Tomas Souceks, James Ward-Prowses, and Tomas Souceks. Slot is not the only way to skin this cat. CityThe second was alarming, because it was nothing more than a “set piece”. The teams are allowed to defend them, but it was alarming that Liverpool were so unprepared to deal with their opponent’s corner manoeuvres. Liverpool may not have been subjected to the kind of relentless blows which hit the Gunners late in the 2024-25 season, but this wasn’t a problem for the title contenders at that stage. Martin Odegaard was the only major loss in their team’s structure. He had returned from an ankle problem too early, and without him, they couldn’t have gotten going.
Can Liverpool get ‘result after result?If nothing else, having a truly top-notch goalkeeper would be invaluable while the team is as vulnerable as it has been on their flanks so far this year. Liverpool isn’t likely to continue getting “results” this season given their defensive standards. The parallels to old Arsenal are once again striking and perhaps even more pronounced. Arteta has seen his team improve from 0.69 expected non-penalty goals (npxGs) per match to 1.03 in just 11 games. Liverpool, too, has faltered. The rot which began around March continues into the current season. With such defensive metrics, it is impossible to achieve title-winning performances without having one of football’s best attacks. Liverpool doesn’t have it. It has scored 18 goals in just 11 Premier League games. That is the sixth highest total. They also have 17.25 net points per game, which makes them seventh. If you have an npxG that is the fifth best league-wide at 0.44 per match, then you’re not a team who is likely to be on a winning streak. The storyline of this season may feel similar to Arsenal’s, but the data points to Aston Villa in 2024-25 who went on to win 48 points out of their final 27 games. They never had “results, results and more results.”
It was in a division which might have been stratified more than this season. Slot said that the story of the 11 first games of the year is “one team is far ahead… the rest are quite close.” It is not a big difference in the npxG. From Liverpool with 4.88 to Tottenham with -4.26, there are 14 clubs. Wolverhampton Wanderers (and Burnley) are the only two teams that have a legitimately bad season. It’s much more difficult to hit a streak if you take out half of the easy games from last season. Liverpool faces two newly promoted teams and teams ranked 18th-19th after the break. Both West Ham and Nottingham Forest appear to be toughening under experienced coaches who are well versed in defending and counterplay. Sunderland may not be as strong away from the Stadium of Light, but would you wager that they wouldn’t give Liverpool a bad nose after what happened to Arsenal? It was the same feeling for the Gunners a year ago. They thought that they had made it through the tough part of the journey and that success was just around the corner. In the end, they proved that even title contenders are not able to flick a button and “win win win”. If this is the case, then Liverpool’s title race has already been won.
2025-11-10 22:26:53
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